Since her appearance as a geisha, she had quickly won her way to the line of first-raters. She had worked the debt off herself, and was now in a free position to work on her own account. To be true, she was under more or less obligation to Tokubey, yet she was mistress of herself and of a house. When she had found herself again free to act on her mind, she secretly engaged men to work on the case of Shinsuké, whom she could never forget. Her effort, however, was rewarded with no success beyond what came to bear out Tokubey’s story, in regard to Santa’s deed and the boatman’s new wife. All this collaborating to point to Shinsuké’s death, she had now little else save to accept it finally. And so, everything was flung to the winds, in the face of fate. She had nowadays come to live a carefree life, if he forgave her for saying this, and lived much the way after her own mind, enjoying what gaiety her independent ways and buoyant nature could glean out of her new life. And there was no business so delightful as that of the geisha, in her opinion; nothing so sweet as to wheedle money out of dolts of men who knew no better. Now, to crown her happiness, she had refound this night her long-lost sweetheart, and what happiness to think that it was now in her power to make it possible for him to live and be as happy as she was.
Even as she went on with her account, she had taken a good quantity of drinks. Her eyes which now looked into his were as flushed as if blood threatened to exude out of their corners. “Fill my cup, sweetheart!” she asked, with her cup held out, as she drew nearer to him. “It’s ever so long since you gave me a cupful!”
“Tsu-chan, it is myself that must ask your forgiveness! I’m no longer a man fit to live with you!” Whereon, Shinsuké suddenly adjusted himself into a solemn attitude, taking her hands off himself, as she pressed still nearer to him. The account of his dreadful crimes he gave, and he gave it in full and so straight as if he might have meant to fling it into the face of the young woman raptured over her own cup of joy.
“—So, you see that I should go and take my punishment, even tomorrow. I owe no less to that man of Narihira-cho. To die—to die, if once I can see you—my mind has been made up, now a long time! Forgive me all!” He broke into tears, as he flung himself on the floor.
“If you must die, I will not live, either. But how you worry yourself, like the man you’ve always been!” Without much display of any particular emotion, Tsuya gave utterance to her mind, her body left loosely heaped just as it had broken down, like a drunken man in his final loss of legs, even to the point of a belch that tersely punctuated her words.
“Of course, I am to blame for the whole thing—if it comes to that,” she went on. “But the more I hear of your story about killing them, the better and more solid reason I think you had for doing it. About Seiji’s woman, too, it was a case of squaring yourself with him—I don’t see anything particularly wrong about it. In fact, I’m even glad you did it. I am, indeed!—Now, look here, Shin-don, if you didn’t give yourself away, the old man, of Narihira-cho, wouldn’t hand in the case to the officer, would he? There’s nobody else wise to the game. They don’t call too much honesty a virtue, nowadays!”
“How you talk!” he was astounded, and fixed on her a stern lode of rebuke. But as he began with his persuasive effort, his was a tone of beseeching tenderness.
“There is something in what you say, but I would never forgive myself if I were to stay away from the hand of the law. Step out, own up everything, and take the punishment I deserve—that’s what I owe to my master, my old father, and Kinzo, and no less. The fact is, I have something to ask you—it’s the last wish of my life. I want you to quit this sort of life—the earlier even by a day, the better—and go back to your folks. The master took it so badly about you that he’s kept to his sick bed ever since last year; and if this you do not know, I do. Let him see you again, and I know he will be happy; he will never be the one to nurse grievances against you for so long a time, or to keep harping on what’s done and past. About the account you owe to Tokubey, you can tell your father and he will be just ready to settle it off for you, I
