House of the Sleeping Beauties

by Yasunari Kawabata

  When they chanced to meet by Shinobazu Pond, the girl had a baby strapped to her back. The baby had on a white wool cap. It was autumn and the lotuses in the pond were withering. Possibly the white butterfly dancing behind his closed eyelids tonight was called up by that white cap.

  When they met by the pond, all Eguchi could think of was to ask whether she was happy.

  “Yes,” she replied immediately. “I am happy.” Probably there was no other answer.

  “And why are you walking here all by yourself with a baby on your back?” It was a strange question. The girl only looked into his face.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  “It’s a girl. Really! Can’t you tell by looking at it?”

  “Is it mine?”

  “It is not.” The girl shook her head angrily. “It is not.”

  “Oh? Well, if it is, you needn’t say so now. You can say so when you feel like it. Years and years from now.”

  “It is not. It really is not. I haven’t forgotten that I loved you, but you are not to imagine things. You will only cause trouble for her.”

  “Oh?” Eguchi made no special attempt to look at the baby’s face, but he looked on and on after the girl. She glanced back when she had gone some distance. Seeing that he was still watching her, she quickened her pace. He did not see her again. More than ten years ago he had heard of her death. Eguchi, now sixty-seven, had lost many friends and relations, but the memory of the girl was still young. Reduced now to three details, the baby’s white cap and the cleanness of the secret place and the blood on the breast, it was still clear and fresh. Probably there was no one in the world besides Eguchi who knew of that incomparable cleanness, and with his death, not far away now, it would quite disappear from the world. Though shyly, she had let him look on as he would. Perhaps that was the way with girls; but there could be no doubt that the girl did not herself know of the cleanness. She could not see it.

  Early in the morning after they got to Kyoto, Eguchi and the girl walked through a bamboo grove. The bamboo shimmered silver in the morning light. In Eguchi’s memory the leaves were fine and soft, of pure silver, and the bamboo stalks were of silver too. On the path that skirted the grove, thistles and dew-flowers were in bloom. Such was the path that floated up in his memory. There would seem to be some confusion about the season. Beyond the path they climbed a blue stream, where a waterfall roared down, its spray catching the sunlight. In the spray the girl stood naked. The facts were different, but in the course of time Eguchi’s mind had made them so. As he grew old, the hills of Kyoto and the trunks of the red pines in gentle clusters could sometimes bring the girl back to Eguchi; but memories as vivid as tonight’s were rare. Was it the youth of the sleeping girl that invited them?

  Old Eguchi was wide awake and did not seem likely to go to sleep. He did not want to remember women other than the girl who had looked at the little rainbows. Nor did he want to touch the sleeping girl, to look at her naked. Turning face down, he again opened the packet at his pillow. The woman of the inn had said that it was sleeping medicine, but Eguchi hesitated. He did not know what it would be, whether or not it would be the medicine the girl had been given. He took one pill in his mouth, and washed it down with a good amount of water. Perhaps because he was used to a bedtime drink but not to sleeping medicine, he was quickly pulled into sleep. He had a dream. He was in the embrace of a woman, but she had four legs. The four legs were entwined about him. She had arms as well. Though half awake, he thought the four legs odd, but not repulsive. Those four legs, so much more provocative than two, were still with him. It was a medicine to make one have such dreams, he thought absently. The girl had turned away from him, her hips toward him. He seemed to find something touching about the fact that her head was more distant than her hips. Half asleep and half awake, he took the long hair spread out toward him and played with it as if to comb it; and so he fell asleep.

  His next dream was most unpleasant. One of his daughters had borne a deformed child in a hospital. Awake, the old man could not remember what sort of deformity it had been. Probably he did not want to remember. It was hideous, in any case. The baby was immediately taken from the mother. It was behind a white curtain in the maternity room, and she went over and commenced hacking it to pieces, getting it ready to throw away. The doctor, a friend of Eguchi’s, was standing beside her in white. Eguchi too was beside her. He was wide awake now, groaning from the horror of it. The crimson velvet on the four walls so startled him that he put his hands to his face and rubbed his forehead. It had been a horrible nightmare. There could scarcely be a monster hidden in the sleeping medicine. Was it that, having come in search of misshapen pleasure, he had had a misshapen dream? He did not know which of his three daughters he had dreamed of, and he did not try to know. All three had borne quite normal babies.

  Eguchi would have wanted to leave if it had been possible. But he took the other pill, to fall into a deeper sleep. The cold water passed down his throat. The girl still had her back to him. Thinking that she might—it was not impossible—bear the ugliest and most doltish of children, he put his hand to the roundness at her shoulder.

  “Look this way.”

  As if in answer she turned over. One of her hands fell on his chest. One leg came toward him, as if trembling in the cold. So warm a girl could not be cold. From her mouth or her nose, he could not be sure which, came a small voice.

  “Are you having a nightmare too?” he asked.

  But old Eguchi was quick to sink into the depths of sleep.

  2

  Old Eguchi had not thought that he would again go the “house of the sleeping beauties.” He had not thought when he spent that first night there that he would like to go again. So it had been too when he left in the morning.

  It was about a fortnight later that a telephone call came asking whether he might like to pay a visit that night. The voice seemed to be that of the woman in her forties. Over the telephone it sounded even more like a cold whisper from a silent place.

  “If you leave now, when may I hope to see you?”

  “A little after nine, I’d imagine.”

  “That will be too soon. The young lady is not here yet, and even if she were she would not be asleep.”

  Startled, Eguchi did not answer.

  “I should have her asleep by eleven. I’ll be waiting for you any time after that.”

  The woman’s speech was slow and calm, but Eguchi’s heart raced.

  “About eleven, then,” he said, his throat dry.

  What does it matter whether she’s asleep or not, he should have been able to say, not seriously, perhaps, but half in jest. He would have liked to meet her before she went to sleep, he could have said. But somehow the words caught in his throat. He had come up against the secret rule of the house. Because it was such a strange rule, it had to be followed all the more strictly. Once it was broken, the place became no more than an ordinary bawdy house. The sad requests of the old men, the allurements, all disappeared. Eguchi himself was startled at the fact that he had caught his breath so sharply upon being told that nine was too early, that the girl would not be asleep, that the woman would have her asleep by eleven. Might it be called the surprise of suddenly being pulled away from the everyday world? For the girl would be asleep and certain not to wake up.

  Was he too quick or too slow, going again after a fortnight to a house he had not thought to revisit? He had not, in any case, resisted the temptation by force of will. He had not meant to indulge again in this sort of ugly senile dalliance, and in fact he was not yet as senile as the other men who visited the place. And yet that first visit had not left behind ugly memories. The guilt was there; but he felt that he had not in all his sixty-seven years spent another night so clean. So he still felt when he awoke in the morning. The sleeping medicine had worked, it seemed, and he had slept until eight, later than usual. No part of him was touching the girl. It was a sweet, childlike awakening, in her young warmth and soft scent.
r />   The girl had lain with her face toward him, her head very slightly forward and her breasts back, and in the shadow of her jaw there had been a scarcely perceptible line across the fresh, slender neck. Her long hair was spread over the pillow behind her. Looking up from the neatly closed lips, he had gazed at her eyebrows and eyelashes, and had not doubted that she was a virgin. She was too near for his old eyes to make out the individual hairs of the eyelashes and eyebrows. Her skin, on which he could not see the fuzz, glowed softly. There was not a single mole on the face and neck. He had forgotten the nightmare, and as affection for the girl poured through him, there came over him too a childlike feeling that he was loved by the girl. He felt for a breast, and held it softly in his hand. There was in the touch a strange flicker of something, as if this were the breast of Eguchi’s own mother before she had him inside her. He withdrew his hand, but the sensation went from his chest to his shoulders.

  He heard the door to the next room open.

  “Are you awake?” asked the woman of the house. “I have breakfast ready.”

  “Yes,” said Eguchi hastily. The morning sun through the shutters fell bright on the velvet curtains. But morning light did not mix with the soft light from the ceiling.

  “I can bring it, then?”

  “Yes.”

  Raising himself, Eguchi softly touched the girl’s hair.

  He knew that the woman was sending her customer away before the girl awoke, but she was calm as she served him breakfast. Until when had the girl been put to sleep? But it would not do to ask unnecessary questions.

  “A very pretty girl,” he said nonchalantly.

  “Yes. And did you have pleasant dreams?”

  “It brought me very pleasant dreams.”

  “The wind and the waves have quieted down.” The woman changed the subject. “It will be what they call Indian summer.”

  And now, coming a second time in half a month, Eguchi did not feel the curiosity of the earlier visit so much as reticence and a certain discomfort; but the excitement was also stronger. The impatience of the wait from nine to eleven had brought on a certain intoxication.

  The same woman unlocked the gate for him. The same reproduction was in the alcove. The tea was again good. He was more nervous than on his earlier visit, but he managed to behave like an old and experienced customer.

  “It’s so warm hereabouts,” he said, looking around at the picture of the mountain village in autumn leaves, “that I imagine the maple leaves wither without really turning red. But then it was dark, and I didn’t really get a good look at your garden.”

  It was an improbable way to make conversation.

  “I wonder,” said the woman, indifferently. “It’s gotten very cold. I’ve put on an electric blanket, a double one with two switches. You can adjust your side to suit yourself.”

  “I’ve never slept under an electric blanket.”

  “You can turn your side off if you like, but I must ask that you leave the girl’s on.”

  Because she was naked, the old man knew.

  “An interesting idea, a blanket that two people can adjust to suit themselves.”

  “It’s American. But please don’t be difficult and turn off the girl’s side. You understand, I’m sure, that she won’t wake up, no matter how cold she gets.”

  He did not answer.

  “She’s more experienced than the one before.”

  “What?”

  “She’s very pretty too. You won’t do anything wrong, I know—and so it wouldn’t be right if she weren’t pretty.”

  “It’s not the same one?”

  “No. This evening—isn’t it better to have a different one?”

  “I’m not as promiscuous as all that.”

  “Promiscuous? But what does it have to do with promiscuousness?”

  The woman’s easy way of speaking seemed to hide a faint smile of derision. “None of my guests do anything promiscuous. They are all kind enough to be gentlemen I can trust.” Thin-lipped, the woman did not look at him as she spoke. The note of mockery set Eguchi on edge, but he could think of nothing to say. What was she, after all, but a cold, seasoned procuress?

  “And then you may think of it as promiscuous, but the girl herself is asleep, and doesn’t even know who she has slept with. The girl the other time and the girl tonight will never know a thing about you, and to speak of promiscuousness is a little…”

  “I see. It’s not a human relationship.”

  “What do you mean?”

  It would be odd to explain, now that he had come to the house, that for an old man who was no longer a man, to keep company with a girl who had been put to sleep was “not a human relationship.”

  “And what’s wrong with being promiscuous?” Her voice strangely young, the woman laughed a laugh to soothe an old man. “If you’re so fond of the other girl, I can have her here the next time you come; but you’ll admit afterwards that this one is better.”

  “Oh? What do you mean when you say she’s more experienced? After all she’s sound asleep.”

  “Yes.” The woman got up, unlocked the door to the next room, looked inside, and put the key before old Eguchi. “I hope you sleep well.”

  Eguchi poured hot water into the pot and had a leisurely cup of tea. He meant it to be leisurely, at least, but his hand was shaking. It was not because of his age, he muttered. He was not yet a guest to be trusted. How would it be, by way of revenge for all the derided and insulted old men who came here, if he were to violate the rule of the house? And would that not be a more human way of keeping company with the girl? He did not know how heavily she had been drugged, but he was probably still capable of awakening her with his roughness. So he thought; but his heart did not rise to the challenge.

  The ugly senility of the sad men who came to this house was not many years away for Eguchi himself. The immeasurable expanse of sex, its bottomless depth—what part of it had Eguchi known in his sixty-seven years? And around the old men, new flesh, young flesh, beautiful flesh was forever being born. Were not the longing of the sad old men for the unfinished dream, the regret for days lost without ever being had, concealed in the secret of this house? Eguchi had thought before that girls who did not awaken were ageless freedom for old men. Asleep and unspeaking, they spoke as the old men wished.

  He got up and opened the door to the next room, and already a warm smell came to him. He smiled. Why had he hesitated? The girl lay with both hands on the quilt. Her nails were pink. Her lipstick was a deep red. She lay face up.

  “Experienced, is she?” he muttered as he came up to her. Her cheeks were flushed from the warmth of the blanket, and indeed her whole face was flushed. The scent was rich. Her eyelids and cheeks were full. Her neck was so white as to take on the crimson of the velvet curtains. The closed eyes seemed to tell him that a young witch lay sleeping before him. As he undressed, his back to her, the warm smell enveloped him. The room was filled with it.

  It did not seem likely that old Eguchi could be as reticent as he had been with the other girl. This was a girl who, whether sleeping or awake, called out to a man—so strongly that, were he to violate the rule of the house, he could only blame the misdeed on her. He lay with his eyes closed, as if to savor the pleasure that was to come later, and youthful warmth came up from deep inside him. The woman had spoken well when she said that this one was better; but the house seemed all the stranger for having been able to find such a girl. He lay wrapped in the perfume, thinking her too good to touch. Though he did not know a great deal about perfume, this seemed to be the scent of the girl herself. There could be no greater happiness than thus drifting off into a sweet sleep. He wanted to do just that. He slid quietly toward her. As though in reply, she turned gently toward him, her arms extended under the blanket as if to embrace him.

  “Are you awake?” he asked, pulling away and shaking her jaw. “Are you awake?” He put more strength into his hand. She turned face down as if to avoid it, and as she did so a corner
of her mouth opened slightly, and the nail of his index finger brushed against one or two of her teeth. He left it there. Her lips remained parted. She was of course in a deep sleep, and not merely pretending.

  Not expecting the girl tonight to be different from the girl of the other night, he had protested to the woman of the house; but he knew of course that to take sleeping medicine repeatedly could only injure a girl. It might be said that for the sake of the girls’ health Eguchi and the other old men were made to be “promiscuous.” But were not these upstairs rooms for a single guest only? Eguchi did not know much about the first floor, but if it was for guests at all it could not have more than one guest room. He hardly thought, then, that many girls were needed for the old men who came here. And were they all beautiful in their different ways, like the girl tonight and the one before?

  The tooth against Eguchi’s finger seemed to be very slightly damp with something that clung to the finger. He moved it back and forth in her mouth, feeling the teeth two and three times. On the outside they were for the most part dry, but on the inside they were smooth and damp. To the right they were crooked, a tooth on top of another. He took the crooked pair between his thumb and index finger. He thought of putting his finger behind them, but, though asleep, she clenched her teeth and quite refused to open them. When he took his finger away it was stained red. And with what was he to wipe away the lipstick? If he wiped it on the pillow case, it would look as if she had smeared it herself when she turned face down. But it did not seem likely to come off unless he moistened it with his tongue, and he was strangely revolted at the thought of touching his mouth to the red finger. He rubbed it against the hair at her forehead. Rubbing with his thumb and index finger, he was soon probing through her hair with all five fingers, twisting it; and gradually his motions were rougher. The ends of the girl’s hair sent out little sparks of electricity against his fingers. The scent from the hair was stronger. Partly because of the warmth of the electric blanket, the scent from under it too was stronger. As he played with her hair, he noted the lines at the edges, clean as if sketched in, and especially the line at the nape of the long neck, where the hair was short and brushed upwards. At the forehead long hair and short hair fell in strands, as if untended. Brushing it upwards he gazed at her eyebrows and eyelashes. The other hand was so deep in her hair that he could feel the skin beneath.