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 to 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 de did nor know a great deal about perfume, 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 nor 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 girl's health Eguchi and the other old men were to 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, them, 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 thumbs 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 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 the 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.
'No, she's not awake.' he said to himself, clutching at her hair and shaking from the crown.
She seemed in pain, and rolled over face down. The motions brought her nearer the old man. Both arms were exposed. The right arm was on the pillow. The right cheek rested in it, so that Eguchi could see only the fingers. They were slightly spread, the little finger below the eyelashes, the index finger at her lips, inclined somewhat downwards, and the red of the dour long fingernails made a cluster along the white pillowcase. The left arm too was bent at the elbow. The hand was almost directly under Eguchi's eyes. The fingers, long and slender compared to the fullness of the cheeks, made him think of her outstretched legs. He felt for a leg with the sole of his foot. The left hand too lay with the fingers slightly parted. He rested his head on it. A spasm caused by his weight went all the way to her shoulder, but it was not enough to pull the hand away. He lay unmoving for a time. Her shoulders were slightly raised, and there was a young roundness in them. As he pulled the blanket over them, he took the roundness gently in his hands. He moved his face from her hand to her arm. He was drawn by the scent of the shoulder, the nape of the neck. There was a tremor along the shoulder and the back, but it passed immediately. The old man clung to them.
He would now have revenge upon this slave maiden, drugged into sleep, for all the contempt and derision endured by the old men who frequented the house. He would violate the rule of the house. He knew that he would not be allowed to come again. He hoped to awaken her by his roughness. But immediately he drew back, for he had come upon clear evidence of her virginity.
He groaned as he pulled away, his breathing was convulsive, his pulse rapid, less from the sudden interruption than from the surprise. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. It was easy for him as it would have been for a young man. Stroking her hair, he opened his eyes again. She still lay face downward. A virgin prostitute, and at her age! What was she if not a prostitute? So he told himself. But with the passage if the storm his feelings toward the girl and his feelings toward himself had changed, and would not return to what they had been. He was not sorry. It would have been the merest folly, whatever he might have done to a sleeping and unknowing girl. But what had been the meaning of the surprise?
Led astray by the witchlike face, Eguchi had set out upon the forbidden path. And now he knew that the old men who were guests here came with a happiness more melancholy, a craving far stronger, a sadness far deeper that he had imagined. Though theirs was an easy sort of dalliance for old men, an easy way to juvenescence, it had deep inside it something that would not come back whatever the regrets, that would not be healed however strenuous the efforts. That the 'experienced' witch tonight was still a virgin was less the mark of the old's men respect for their promises than the grim mark of their decline. The purity of the girl was like the ugliness of the old men.
Perhaps the hand beneath her cheek had gone numb. She bought it over her head and slowly flexed the fingers two or three times. It touched Eguchi's hand, still probing through her hair. He took it in his. The fingers where supple and a little cold. He ground them together, as id to crush them. Raising her left shoulder, she turned half over. She brought her left arm up and flung it over Eguchi's shoulder as if to embrace him. It was without strength, however, and did not take his neck in its embrace. Her face, now turned toward him, was too near, a blurry white to his old eyes. But the too thick eyebrows, the eyelashes casting too dark a shadow, the full eyelids and cheeks, the long neck, all confirmed his first impression, that of a witch.
The breasts sagged slightly but were very full, and for a Japanese the nipples were large and swollen. He ran a hand down her spine and over her legs. They were stretched taut from the hips. What seemed like a disharmony between the upper and lower parts of her body may have to do with her being a virgin.
Quietly now, he looked at her face and neck. It was a skin meant to take on a faint reflection from the crimson of the velvet curtains. Her body had so been used by old men that the woman of the house had described by 'experienced', and yet she was a virgin. It was because the men were senile, and because she was in such a deep sleep. Thoughts almost fatherly came to him as he asked himself what vicissitudes this witchlike girl faced through the years ahead. In them was evidence that Eguchi too was old. There could be no doubt that the girl was here for money. Nor was there any doubt that, for the old men who paid out the money, sleeping beside such a girl was a happiness not of this world. Because the girl would not awaken, the aged guests need not feel the shame of their years. They were quite free to indulge in unlimited dreams and memories of woman. Was that not why they felt no hesitation at paying more than for woman awake? And the old men were confident in the knowledge that the girls put to sleep for them knew nothing of them. Nor did the old men know anything of the girls… not even what clothes they wore… to give clues of position and character. The reasons went beyond such simple matters as disquiet about later complications, They were a strange light at the bottom of a deep darkness.
But old Eguchi was not yet used to keeping company with a girl who said nothing, a girl who did not open her eyes, who gave him no recognition. Empty longing had not left him. He wanted to see the eyes of this witchlike girl. He wanted to hear her voice, to talk to her. The urge was not so strong to explore the sleeping girl with his hands. Indeed it had in it a certain bleakness, Having been startled into rejecting all thoughts of violating the secret rule, he would follow the ways of the other old men. The girl tonight, though asleep, was more alive than the girl the other night. Life was there, most definitely, in her scent, in her touch, in the way she moved.
As before, two sleeping pills lay beside his pillow. Bit tonight he thought he would not go to sleep immediately. He would look yet a time longer at the girl. Her movements were strong, even in her sleep. It seemed that she must
