raku, 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 
passing me by. I hurried away from the avenue, down a side street leading along the Shirakawa Stream, but even there, men and geisha were rushing along in their lives so full of 
purpose. To shut out the pain of this thought I turned toward the Shirakawa, but cruelly, even 
its waters glided along with purpose-toward the Kamo River and from there to Osaka Bay 
and the Inland Sea. It seemed the same message waited for me everywhere. I threw myself 
onto the little stone wall at the edge of the stream and wept. I was an abandoned island in 
the midst of the ocean, with no past, to be sure, but no future either. Soon I felt myself 
coming to a point where I thought no human voice could reach me-until I heard a man's voice 
say this: 

"Why it's too pretty a day to be so unhappy." 

Ordinarily a man on the streets of Gion wouldn't notice a girl like me, particularly while I was 
making a fool of myself by crying. If he did notice me, he certainly wouldn't speak to me, 
unless it was to order me out of his way, or some such thing. Yet not 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 from the one I'd always known, 
a world in which I was treated with fairness, even kindness-a world in which fathers didn't sell 
their daughters. The noise and hubbub of so many people living their lives of purpose around 
me seemed to stop; or at least, I ceased 
to be aware of it. And when I raised myself to look at the man who'd spoken, I had a feeling 
of leaving my misery behind me there on the stone wall. 

I'll be happy to try to describe him for you, but I can think of only one way to do it-by telling 
you about a certain tree that sj:ood at the edge of the sea cliffs in Yoroido. This tree was as 
smooth as driftwood because of the wind, and when I was a little 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 bump of a nose. The whole face tipped a bit 
to one side, gazing at me quizzically; it looked to me like a man with as much certainty about 
his place in this world as a tree has. Something about it was so meditative, I imagined I'd 
found the face of a Buddha. 

The man who'd addressed me there on the street had this same kind of broad, calm face. 
And what was more, his features were so smooth and serene, 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 gray hair combed straight back from his forehead. But I couldn't look at him 
for long. He seemed so elegant to me that I blushed and looked away. 

Two younger men stood to one side of him; a geisha stood to the other. I heard the geisha 
say to him quietly: 

"Why, she's only a maid! Probably she stubbed her toe while running an errand. I'm sure 
someone will come along to help her soon." 

"I wish I had your faith in people, Izuko-san," said the man. 

"The show will be starting in only a moment. Really, Chairman, I don't think you should waste 
any more time . . ." 

While running errands in Gion, I'd often heard men addressed by titles like "Department 
Head" or occasionally "Vice President." But only rarely had I heard the title "Chairman." 
Usually the men addressed 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 even though I was only a little girl with limited 
experience of the world, I knew his company couldn't be a terribly important one. A man with 
an important company wouldn't have stopped to talk to me. 

"You're trying to tell me it's a waste of time to stay here and help her," said the Chairman. 

"Oh, no," the geisha said. "It's more a matter of having no time to waste. We may be late for 
the first scene already." 

"Now, Izuko-san, surely at some time you yourself have been in the same state this little girl 
is in. You can't pretend the life of a geisha is always simple. I should think you of all people-" 

"I've been in the state she's in? Chairman, do you mean . . . making a public spectacle of 
myself?" 

At this, the Chairman turned to the two younger men and asked that they take Izuko ahead to 
the theater. They bowed and went on their way while the Chairman remained behind. He 
looked at me a long while, though I didn't dare to look back at him. At length I said: 

"Please, sir, what she says is true. I'm only a foolish girl . . . please don't make yourself late 
on my account." 

"Stand up a moment," he told me. 

I didn't dare disobey him, though I had no idea what he wanted. As it turned out, all he did 
was take a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe away the grit that had stuck to my face from 
the top of the stone wall. Standing so close before him, I could smell the odor of talc on his 
smooth skin, which made me 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 though I wasn't supposed to. I remember 
too-that his mustache was carefully groomed, unlike the hair on the faces of the men in our 
village, which grew untended like weeds along a path. No one of any importance had ever 
been in our village before that day. I think we all felt touched by nobility and greatness. 

Occasionally in life we come upon things we can't understand because we have never seen 
anything similar. The Emperor's nephew certainly struck me that way; and so did the 
Chairman. When he had wiped away the grit and tears from my face, he tipped my head up. 

"Here you are ... a beautiful girl with nothing on earth to be ashamed of," he said. "And yet 
you're afraid to look at me. Someone has been cruel to you ... or perhaps life has been 
cruel." 

"I don't know, sir," I said, though of course I knew perfectly well. 

"We none of us find as much kindness in this world as we should," he told me, and he 
narrowed his eyes a moment as if to say I should think seriously about what he'd just said. 

I wanted more than anything to see the smooth skin of his face once more, with its broad 
brow, and the eyelids like sheaths of marble over his gentle eyes; but there was such a gulf 
in social standing between us. I did finally let my eyes flick upward, though I blushed and 
looked away so quickly that he may never have known I met his gaze. 

But how can I describe what I saw in that instant? He was looking at me as a musician might 
look at his instrument just before he begins to play, with understanding and mastery. I felt 
that he could see into me as though I were a part of him. How I would have loved to be the 
instrument he played! 

In a moment he reached into his pocket and brought something out. 

"Do you like sweet plum or cherry?" he said. 

"Sir? Do you mean ... to eat?" 

"I passed a vendor a moment ago, selling shaved ice with syrup on it. I never tasted one until 
I was an adult, but I'd have liked them as a child. Take this coin and buy one. Take my 
handkerchief too, so you can wipe your face afterward," he said. And with this, he pressed 
the coin into the center of the handkerchief, wrapped it into a bundle, and held it out to me. 

From the moment the Chairman had first spoken to me, I'd forgotten that I was watching for a 
sign about my future. But when I saw the bundle he held in his hand, it looked so much like 
the shrouded moth, I knew I'd come upon 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 for the trouble he'd 
taken in stopping to help me. I was thanking him for . . . well, for something I'm not sure I can 
explain even now. For showing me that something besides cruelty could be found in the 
world, I suppose. 

I watched him walk away with sickness in my heart-though it was a pleasing kind of sickness, 
if such a thing exists. I mean to say that if you have experienced an evening more exciting 
than any in your life, you're sad to see it 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 casual meeting on 
the street could have brought about such change. But sometimes life is like that, isn't it? And 


I really do think if you'd been there to see what I saw, and feel what I felt, the same might 
have happened to you. 

When the Chairman had disappeared from sight, I rushed up the street to search for the 
shaved ice vendor. The day wasn't especially hot, and I didn't care for shaved ice; but eating 
it would make my encounter with the Chairman linger. So I bought a paper cone of shaved 
ice with cherry syrup on it, and went to sit again on the same stone wall. The taste of the 
syrup seemed startlin