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Updated: September 2, 2025
Her body was bent double like a lobster; and her eyes were dim with cataracts. Cousin Sadako said with awe that she was over a hundred years old. Asako had to submit to the indignity of allowing this dessicated hag to pass her fumbling hands all over her body, pinching her and prodding her.
During October, the whole family of the Fujinami removed from Tokyo for a few days in order to perform their religious duties at the temple of Ikégami. Even grandfather Gennosuké emerged from his dower-house, bringing his wife, O Tsugi. Mr. Fujinami Gentaro was in charge of his own wife, Shidzuyé San, of Sadako and of Asako.
Then she began to cry, hiding her face in her kimono sleeve. "Do you love him?" Asako could not help asking. "Of course, I love him," cried Sadako, starting up from her sorrow. "You see me. I am no more virgin. He is my life to me. Why cannot I love him? Why cannot I be free like men are free to love as they wish? I am new woman. I read Bernard Shaw.
"Tanaka" she said one morning, in what was almost her old manner, "I think I will have the motor car to-day." Tanaka had become her body servant as in the old days. At first she had resented the man's reappearance, which awakened such cruel memories. She had protested against him to Sadako, who had smiled and promised.
Sadako then motioned her to sit on the floor. She took one of the tablets from its place and placed it in front of her cousin. "That is your father's ihai," she said; and then removing another and placing it beside the first, she added, "This is your mother." Asako was deeply moved.
Sadako told her cousin that the young man was a genius, and would one day be Professor of Literature at the Imperial University. Yo no naka wo Nani ni tatoyemu? Asa-borake Kogi-yuku fune no Ato no shira-nami. To what shall I compare This world? To the white wake behind A ship that has rowed away At dawn!
Hitherto her thoughts had been concerned merely with her own pleasures and pains, with the smiles and frowns of those around her, with petty events and trifling projects. Perhaps, because some of her father's blood was alive in her veins, she could understand certain aspects of his book more clearly than her interpreter, Sadako. She knew now why Geoffrey would not touch her money.
"Oh!" gasped the admiring Asako, "I must get one of those geisha girls to show me how to wear my kimonos properly; they do look smart." "I do not think," answered Sadako. "These are vulgar women, bad style; I will teach you the noble way."
She was sweet, gentle and innocent; far more Japanese, indeed, than her sophisticated cousin. It was a type which was becoming rare in her own country. Little Asako had nothing in common with the argumentative heroines of Bernard Shaw or with the desperate viragos of Ibsen, to whom Sadako felt herself spiritually akin. Asako must be a fool.
It was as though she had been asked whether music or philosophy were difficult. "One can never study too much," she said, "one is always learning; one can never be perfect. Life is short, art is long." "But it is not an art like painting or playing the piano, just pouring out tea?" "Oh, yes," Sadako smiled again, "it is much more than that.
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