The Makioka Sisters

by Junichiro Tanizaki

  One of the clerks from the shop, a man named Tomatsuri, had drunk a little too much.

  “They tell me you are still single, Miss Yukiko,” came a thick voice from the lower end of the room. “Why is that?”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “We are already behind schedule,” said Taeko, always in control of herself, “and we think we might as well take our time and look around for someone really good.”

  “But you are taking a little too much time.”

  “Come now. Is it ever too late?”

  Ladies giggled nervously here and there. Yukiko only smiled at the exchange. Tatsuo pretended not to notice.

  “Tomatsuri, Tomatsuri.” Tsukada the carpenter had taken off his civil-defense jacket and sat in shirtsleeves. Gold teeth flashed from the sunburned face. “I hear you made a killing in the stock market.”

  “Not yet. I am still thinking about it.”

  “You have some good ideas?”

  “This month I go to China. My sister was working in a dance hall in Tientsin, and the army noticed her and made a spy of her.”

  “Oh?”

  “And now she has married an old China hand, and I hear she does very well. She sends a thousand or two back every now and then.”

  “I ought to have a sister like that myself.”

  “She says this is no time to be loafing around in Japan. There is money waiting to be made in Tientsin.”

  “Take me with you. I could stop being a carpenter almost any time.”

  “Any sort of business that makes money is all right with me. A string of girls, maybe.”

  “You have to be ready for anything, I always say. O-haru, how about a drink.”

  In the Ashiya house, a little drunk on the saké O-haru poured for him, Tsukada would always set about courting her. Would she marry him? He would turn out the woman he already had, whenever she said—he was not joking. O-haru would laugh happily, and so the game would go on. Today he was a little too persistent in trying to make her drink.

  “Let me see if they are heating more sakeé’’ She fled to the kitchen in spite of Tsukada’s protests, and from there out to the weed-choked back garden. Hidden in the underbrush, she took a compact from her black satin obi and retouched her face, a little flushed from drink. Then, sure no one was watching her, she took out an enamel cigarette case, the gift of a favored shop clerk, lit a cigarette, had a few hasty puffs, and, slipping the butt back into the case, went inside again.

  11

  TSURUKO said it was absolutely necessary for her to leave on the twenty-sixth. After the party at the Harihan and a stroll through the entertainment district for an hour or so, Sachiko and the others took her to Osaka Station.

  “Will we see you again soon?”

  “Not unless you come to Tokyo.” They talked through the window of the third-class car. With the children along she could not sleep even if she took a berth, she said, and if she had to sit up there was no difference between second-class and third. “Kikugorō will be playing next month.”

  “He was in Kobe last month, but somehow it was different from seeing him in Tokyo or Osaka.”

  “They say he means to use real cormorants next month for a fishing scene on the Nagara.”

  “It must be a new play. But the dancing is what I like best.”

  “Speaking of dancing, Aunt Tominaga was delighted with Koi-san. She said she had no idea Koi-san was so good.”

  “Isn’t Yukiko getting on the train?” Masao had a crisp Tokyo accent.

  Yukiko, standing on the platform behind the rest, smiled and started to say something. She was drowned out by the bell signalling train time. Since they all knew that she meant to stay in Ashiya, Tsuruko had not made a point of taking her along, and Yukiko had offered no apology. The matter had been settled automatically.

  Sachiko took Yukiko’s advice and said nothing of Taeko’s affairs, and Taeko, apparently interpreting to her own advantage the fact that she had heard nothing from Sachiko, went more and more openly to Nishinomiya. Her daytime visits were bad enough, but Sachiko was much pained at the dark looks she got from Teinosuke when Taeko was away from the dinner table too many nights running. Teinosuke and Sachiko, and Yukiko too, did their best to avoid the word “Koi-san.” The silence only made them more uncomfortable, however, because each knew what the others were thinking. And then there was the question of the effect on Etsuko. Though she had been told by her mother and Yukiko that Koi-san was busy making dolls, it was clear that she did not believe a word of the story. Without having been warned by anyone, she too became shy of mentioning Taeko’s name. Sachiko several times asked her sister to keep her affairs hidden from Teinosuke and Etsuko. Taeko would nod, and, after coming home early for two or three nights, would fall back into her old habits.

  “Did you tell Tsuruko about Koi-san?” No longer able to contain himself, Teinosuke brought the matter up one evening.

  “I meant to, and then I had trouble finding the right time.”

  “Why?”

  “As a matter of fact I told Yukiko, and she thought it would be better not to say anything.”

  “Why?”

  “She seems to sympathize with Kei-boy. She is willing to look the other way.”

  “Whether or not you sympathize with him ought to depend on the facts. Does Yukiko see the effect this sort of thing has on her own chances?” Teinosuke frowned fiercely and said no more, and Sachiko had trouble guessing his thoughts.

  Toward the middle of October, he was again in Tokyo for two or three days.

  “Did you go to Shibuya?”

  “Yes. And I told Tsuruko everything.” Tsuruko had said only that she must give the problem some thought. Toward the end of the month an unexpected letter came.

  October 25

  DEAR SACHIKO,

  I am afraid we were a great bother to you. Besides everything else, you gave that extremely pleasant party at the Harihan. I came away thinking what a good place Osaka was. I was too busy even to write afterwards, and now I find that I must write a letter I would prefer not to. I find that there dre things I must say, distasteful though they are—about Koi-san of course. I was thoroughly shocked when I heard Teinosuke’s story. He said he would leave nothing out, and told me everything, from the affair with the man Itakura on down to Kei-boy’s being disinherited, and I was more shocked the more 1 heard. I have occasionally picked up rumors about Koi-san, but I had no idea that she was so thoroughly bad. I had thought that she would not go too far with you watching her. I see now that I was wrong. I have worried a great deal about making a good girl of Koi-san, and each time I have tried to intervene I have found you protecting her. She is a disgrace to the Makioka name. And I understand that even Yukiko said there was no need to tell me. Yukiko and Koi-san have insulted us by refusing to come home, and now what do they have in mind? I cannot help thinking that the three of you are deliberately trying to make trouble for Tatsuo— though we are probably at fault ourselves. We have not done as much for you as we might.

  I have let myself run on. I have felt that I must tell you exactly what is on my mind, however, and if I have hurt you I am sorry.

  The question now is what to do with her. We once agreed with you that the best solution would be for her to marry Kei-boy. We can no longer consider the possibility. It may be that there will be room for argument once he is taken back into his family, but as matters stand now we must insist that she stop seeing him. If she really has her heart set on marrying him, she ought to know that seeing him now can only alienate the Okubata family. Since she cannot be trusted even if she says she is no longer visiting his house, Tatsuo says, we must have her come to Tokyo for a while. It may not be easy for her. As you know, our house is small and we do not live as well as you do, but this is no time to worry about trifles. Explain everything to her, and send her to us. Tatsuo says that it was wrong of us to think we were too crowded. Yukiko is to come back too, and we will all bear the inconvenience together.


  I must ask you to be stem with her at least this once. Even if she refuses to come to Tokyo, we do not mean to leave her with you. This is Tatsuo’s view, and I quite agree with him. He adds that he hopes this time you will be on our side and help us be firm, and that we have made up our minds and want no stalling. We would like an answer before the end of the month on which of the two it is to be: does she come to Tokyo, or is she thrown out of the Makioka family? Since we would of course prefer to avoid the second possibility, we hope you and Yukiko will do your best to persuade her. I shall be waiting for an answer.

  As always,

  TSURUKO

  “I have had this letter from Tokyo, Yukiko. Read it.” Sachiko’s eyes were red. “It is a very strong letter. And she seems to be unhappy about you too.”

  “Tatsuo made her write it,”

  “But she was the one who did the writing.”

  “We insulted them by not going to Tokyo, she says. But that all happened so long ago. He has never really wanted us since he moved to Tokyo.”

  “And he as much as said that he did not mind having you, but Koi-san would be a nuisance.”

  “Where would they find room?”

  “They talk as though I were the one who made Koi-san a delinquent. I knew she would never listen to them, and I thought if I stood between and watched over her I could keep her from going too far wrong. Tsuruko can say what she likes, if I had not been here to step in, who knows what might have happened? I have only been thinking of Koi-san and of the people in the main house, and I have tried to keep from hurting anyone. I have only done what I could.”

  “And it is all so simple, they seem to think. If it is not convenient to have her around, just throw her out and everything is settled.”

  “But what shall we do? She will never go to Tokyo.”

  “There is no need even to ask.”

  “What shall we do, then?”

  “Wait a little while.”

  “Not this time, Yukiko. Teinosuke is on their side.”

  Sachiko would see what Koi-san had to say, then, and it would be good if Yukiko could be with her. The three sisters shut themselves into Taeko’s bedroom the next morning.

  “Koi-san, would you think of going to Tokyo for just a little while?”

  Taeko shook her head like a spoiled child. “I would rather be dead than have to live with them.”

  “But what shall I tell them?”

  “Whatever you like.”

  “You can say so, Koi-san, but Teinosuke is on their side. They are not going to forget.”

  “I will live by myself for a while.”

  “Not with Kei-boy?”

  “I will see him, but I certainly will not go to live with him.”

  “Why do you put it so strongly?”

  Though she did not answer, it seemed that she did not want people to misunderstand, to think she was in love with the man when she only pitied him. Sachiko and Yukiko suspected too that she was reluctant to admit her mistake. In any case, since she must leave the house, it would better satisfy appearances if she were at least for the moment to live alone.

  “You promise, Koi-san? You promise to take a room somewhere?” Sachiko’s relief was apparent in her voice. “I hate to say so, but that might really be best.”

  “And if you have a room somewhere I can look in on you now and then,” said Yukiko.

  “Yes, Koi-san. There is no reason to make a real issue of it. We can just say that you have reasons for wanting a room of your own, and there will be no need to tell anyone you have left home. If you come in the daytime when Teinosuke and Etsuko are away, we will always be glad to see you. And we can send O-haru around to look after you.”

  There were tears in Sachiko’s eyes and Yukiko’s. Taeko alone was calm, her face quite expressionless. “What shall I do about my things?”

  “You ought to take along the things people will notice—the chest and dresser. But you can leave your valuables here. Where will you live?”

  “I will have to think about that.”

  “The Matsuzumi Apartments?”

  “I would rather not be in Shukugawa this time. I can find something if I look.”

  After her sisters had left, Taeko sat in the window and looked up at the clear late-autumn sky. Soon there were tears streaming over her cheeks.

  12

  TAEKO took a room north of the Motoyamamura bus stop. It was, according to O-haru, a newly finished house, bare and gaunt in the rice paddies, and still without complete utilities. In Kobe with Yukiko some three days later, Sachiko called Taeko for lunch, and found that she was out. Again from O-haru, they learned that she was generally out unless one called early in the morning. She would be around soon, thought Sachiko, but the days went by without a glimpse of her or a telephone call from her.

  Perhaps Teinosuke thought that the sisters had quite severed relations with Taeko, or perhaps he knew that a certain amount of secret intercourse was inevitable. In any case, he seemed satisfied now that Taeko had at least outwardly been expelled from the family. Told that Taeko had taken a new studio and would live there, Etsuko accepted the explanation with reservations. Sachiko and Yukiko tried to convince themselves that they had seen little of Taeko anyway and that the change was therefore of no importance. Indeed if a blank space had opened in the house it had opened some time before and had not been specifically the result of the recent unpleasantness. Still they found it sad to think that one of them was living in a shadow.

  To forget the sadness, they would go to Kobe every other day or so and search out old movies and new movies, and sometimes they even saw two movies a day. Among the movies they had seen in the last month alone were Bagdad. Das Mädchen Irene, Hélène, Burgtheater, Boys’ Town, and Suez. They kept thinking they might run into Taeko. Disturbed at the long silence, Sachiko finally sent O-haru off to make inquiries. O-haru reported that she had found Taeko still in bed, evidently quite well. Mrs. Makioka and Miss Yukiko were worried, Koi-san must visit Ashiya, said O-haru. Taeko laughed and said there was nothing to worry about. She would be around before long. In December, Sachiko and Yukiko went to see the French movie Prison sans Baneaux, for which they had been waiting impatiently. Sachiko had to stay at home nursing a cold for some time afterwards.

  On the morning of the twenty-third, with Etsuko’s vacation to begin the next day, Taeko appeared for the first time in nearly two months. After talking for about an hour, she went off with a suitcase full of New Year clothes. She would be around in January with holiday greetings, she said. On the morning of January 15, she came for New-Year’s porridge. Afraid of a chill since that cold, Sachiko stayed close to the house. Yukiko, fond though she was of the movies, was always reluctant to go out alone. She was extremely shy for her rather mature years, and she wanted someone to be with her on the most trivial errands. To keep her at calligraphy and the tea ceremony, Sachiko had been going with her for lessons. Even such quick sortees were dangerous, however, and often Yukiko was sent off alone. And they turned to something they had long been thinking needed attention: Yukiko went every other day for injections to clear the spot over her eye. Dr. Kushida gave her hormone and vitamin injections recommended by a skin specialist at the Osaka University Hospital. This much Yukiko had to keep her busy, and in addition a review, twice a week, of Etsuko’s piano lessons.

  Left to herself, Sachiko would sit down at the piano, or go upstairs to practice her calligraphy, and she would sometimes call O-haru in to practice the koto. O-haru had begun her koto lessons two autumns before with the songs a girl of six or seven leams in Osaka: “Flowers of the Four Seasons,” or the one about the princesses brought from their cloisters for the Doll Festival. Sachiko gave her a lesson now and then as the spirit moved her, and they had moved on to “Black Hair” and “Manzai” and the like. O-haru, who had so disliked school that she asked to be sent out as a maid instead, found this sort of school more congenial. On mornings when Sachiko had promised a lesson, she would rush through he
r house work. She had also picked up dances from Taeko—”Snow” and “Black Hair”—so that she could make her way through them with some competence. Now she was learning “The Call of the Crane.” One phrase—”Is it a lie, is it the truth?”—gave her trouble, and she was set to practicing it over and over for two and three days running. Soon Etsuko was humming the accompaniment.

  “I will get even with you this time, O-haru.” She had been annoyed at the way O-haru would hum piano melodies she herself had difficulty with.

  Late one morning toward the end of the month, Taeko appeared again. Sachiko was listening to the radio.

  “Yukiko?” Taeko pulled a chair up to the fire.

  “She has gone to Dr. Kushida’s.”

  “An injection?”

  “Yes.” Sachiko had been taking down recipes said to be good for the season. Now someone was reciting a No play.

  “Would you turn it off, please, Koi-san?”

  “Wait. Look at Bell.” Taeko pointed her jaw at the cat, asleep by Sachiko’s feet.

  Bell was drowsing happily in the warmth from the stove. Taeko had noticed that its ears twitched at each drum beat. Only the ears were affected, it seemed, by a reflex of no concern to the rest of the cat.

  “What do you suppose does it?”

  “Very strange.”

  They watched, fascinated, as the ears twitched an accompaniment to the No, and when the No was finished Taeko turned off the radio.

  “An injection? Does it seem to be doing any good?”

  “I wonder. Yukiko is not the sort to go on with injections.”

  “How many will she need?”

  “The doctor only said we would have to be patient.”

  “Will it leave before she is married?”