st geisha, I don't remember. But there I was on the list with a little paragraph telling some things about me, including that I'd been born in Kyoto-which of course I wasn't. I can

an unhappy one, like so many other poor girls, if Mr. Tanaka had never written to t

ed to explain why it was the worst; but you may be wondering how I could possibly imagine that anything good ever came of it. It's true that up until this time in m

sent out into the world isn't necessarily the same as leaving your home behind you. I'd been in Gion more than six months by the time I received Mr. Tanaka's letter; and yet during that time, I'd never for a moment given up the belief that I would one day find a better l

t feeling of misery and fear. One cold evening after winter had come, I sat a long while in the maids' room watching snow falling silently into the okiya's little courtyard. I imagined my father coughing at the lonely table i

it womanly, even though Pumpkin still looked very much like a little girl. I'd grown nearly as tall as I would ever grow. My body would remain thin and knobby like a twig for a year or two more, but my face had already given up its childish softness and was now sharp around the chin and cheekbone

member, and then all at once he slid open the paper screen over a window beside him with a loud clack. I awoke thinking I'd heard a noise in the room. The maids were sighing in their sleep. Pumpkin lay quietly with her round face sagging onto the pillow. Everythin

buzzing in my head that comes from a thought circling and circling with nowhere to go, just like a bee in a jar. Soon I put down the broom and went to sit in the dirt corridor, where

g that it would fly away, but instead it sailed like a pebble across the courtyard and lay there upon the ground. I didn't know if it had fallen from the sky already dead or if I had killed

ght of this my mind began to swirl like a hurricane. It struck me that we-that moth and I-were two opposite extremes. My existence was as unstable as a stream, changing in every way; but the moth was like a piece of stone, changing not at all. While thinking this thought, I reached out a finger to feel the moth's velvety surface; but when I brushed it with my fingertip, it turned all at once into a pile of ash without even a sound, without even a moment in which I could see it crumbling. I was so astonished I let out a cry. The swirling in my mind stopped; I felt as if I had stepped into the eye of a storm. I let the tin

uring that day I would receive a sign. This was why the bearded man had opened the window in my dream. He was saying

ther thought before A

, come

prised me if Auntie had said, "You want to know about your future? All right, listen cl

me back to the okiya wearing another girl's ornaments. She must have drunk more than he

ith a number of other errands written on it as well and told

ich is why she was holding them on a square of silk. She wrapped them up to give them to me, so that they looked just like the bundled-up moth I'd been holding only a few minutes earlier. Of course, a sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how to interpret it. I stood there staring at the silk bundle in Auntie's hand until she

fore I spotted her, and came toward me with another geisha. You may wonder why she was at the school at all, since she was already an accomplished dancer and certainly knew everything she

be a weed. Look how tall it is!" This was her way of ridic

" I said, "to find out whose hai

e snatched the little bundl

e . . ." she said. "Wh

t your hair ornaments while the two of you were playing that foolish game with Judge Uw

air? Anyway, her okiya is right next to yours. Take them for me, would you? T

took the hair o

something I want to show you. It's that young girl over the

didn't seem to have any more to say

as awkward as a cripple. But I just thought you'd find it int

aps this was the sign I'd waited for-that other young girls in Gion would move ahead in their lives and leave me behind. This thought gave me such a fright I couldn't stay alone in the garden any longer. I walked down to Shijo Avenue and turned toward the Kamo River. Giant banners on the Minamiza Theater announced the performance of a Kabuki play that afternoon entitled Shibaraku, which is one of our most famous plays, though I knew nothing about Kabuki at the time. Crowds streamed up the steps into the theater. Among the men in their dark Western-style suits or kimono, several geisha stood out in brilliant coloring just like autumn leaves on the murky waters of a river. Here again, I saw life in all its noisy excitement

retty a day to

only had this man bothered to speak to me, he'd actually spoken kindly. He'd addressed me in a way that suggested I might be a young woman of standing-the daughter of a good friend, perhaps. For a flicker of a moment I imagined a world completely different f

ok at the man who'd spoken, I had a feeling of le

e girl of four or five I found a man's face on it one day. That is to say, I found a smooth patch as broad as a plate, with two sharp bumps at the outside edge for cheekbones. They cast shadows suggesting eye sockets, and beneath the shadows rose a gentle b

ne, I had the feeling he'd go on standing there calmly until I wasn't unhappy any longer. He was probably about forty-five years old, with gra

him; a geisha stood to the other. I

ed her toe while running an errand. I'm sur

aith in people, Izuk

oment. Really, Chairman, I don't think

dressed as Chairman had bald heads and frowns, and swaggered down the street with groups of junior executives scurrying behind. This man before me was so different from the usual chairman that eve

a waste of time to stay here an

matter of having no time to waste. We

he same state this little girl is in. You can't pretend the life

Chairman, do you mean . . . maki

d to the theater. They bowed and went on their way while the Chairman remained behind.

'm only a foolish girl . . . please do

a moment,"

recall the day when the Emperor Taisho's nephew had come to our little fishing village. He'd done nothing more than step out of his car and walk to the inlet and back, nodding to the crowds that knelt before him, wearing a Western-style business suit, the first I'd ever seen-for I peeked at him, even thou

n anything similar. The Emperor's nephew certainly struck me that way; and so did the

ashamed of," he said. "And yet you're afraid to look at me. Som

said, though of cours

hould," he told me, and he narrowed his eyes a moment as i

ke sheaths of marble over his gentle eyes; but there was such a gulf in social standing between us. I did finally

his instrument just before he begins to play, with understanding and mastery. I felt that he could

d into his pocket and

weet plum or c

ou mean ..

e liked them as a child. Take this coin and buy one. Take my handkerchief too, so you can wipe your face afterward," he sa

on the sign at last. I took the bundle and bowed low to thank him, and tried to tell him how grateful I was- though I'm sure my words carried none of the fullness of my feelings. I wasn't thanking him for the coin, or even

t end; and yet you still feel grateful that it happened. In that brief encounter with the Chairman, I had changed from a lost girl facing a lifetime of emptiness to a girl with purpose in her life. Perhaps it seems odd that a c

a geisha like the one named Izuko, I thought, a man like the Chairman might spend time with me. I'd never imagined myself envying a geisha. I'd been brought to Kyoto for the purpose of becoming one, of course; but up until now I'd have run away in an instant if I could have. Now I understood the thing I'd overlooked; the point wasn't to become a geisha, but to })e one. To become a geisha . . . well, that was hardly a purpose in life. But to be a geisha

. I held in my hand the change from the vendor-three coins of different sizes. At first I'd tho

s the gravel courtyard and up another flight of steps, I passed through the torii gate to the shrine itself. There I threw the coins into the offertory box-coins that might have been enough to take me away from Gion- and announced my presence to the gods by clapping th

ust as they had a moment earlier. Nothing had changed. As to whether the gods had heard me, I had no way of knowi