Mistress Oriku
Mistress Oriku
STORIES FROM A TOKYO TEAHOUSE
Kawaguchi Matsutaro
TRANSLATED BY ROYALL TYLER
TUTTLE PUBLISHING
Tokyo • Rutland, Vermont • Singapore
Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., with editorial offices at 364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, Vermont 05759 U.S.A.
This book has been selected by the Japanese Literature Publishing Project (JLPP), which is run by the Japanese Literature Publishing and Promotion Center (J-Lit Center) on behalf of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan.
Original title: Shigurejaya Oriku by Matsutaro Kawaguchi
Copyright © Atsushi Kawaguchi 1969
Originally published in Japan by Kodansha, Tokyo
English translation © Royall Tyler 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kawaguchi, Matsutaro, 1899-
[Shigurejaya Oriku. English]
Mistress Oriku: stories from a Tokyo teahouse/Kawaguchi Matsutaro;
translated by Royall Tyler.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-4629-1261-2 (ebook)
I. Tyler, Royall. II. Title.
PL832.A92S513 2007
895.6'35—dc22 2006025198
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CONTENTS
9. Kinosuke’s Stellar Performance
CHAPTER ONE
Life on the Sumida River
“Tokyo was so nice in those days!” Oriku narrowed her eyes as she spoke. It was early Showa, the late 1920s. She was in her early sixties, Shinkichi in his late twenties. She was talking about the city as it had been back in the Meiji period, some forty years earlier.
“You know, you could drop a line in the river from the garden of my place and catch a sea bass. The tide brought them all the way up here. In summer you could jump in from the jetty—people didn’t swim so much as just cool off in it. That shows you how clean the Sumida River was back then.”
She heaved a sigh and lamented the ever-grubbier landscape of Tokyo. Shinkichi, too, was born in Asakusa, and he knew how pretty the Sumida River had been in Meiji. When summer came, water sports took over the whole river, from the Ushijima Shrine to Kototoi, and there were children everywhere, learning to swim.
“When I think of Tokyo in those days, what makes me saddest of all is seeing the river so dirty now. I don’t care how much the world has changed, or civilization has progressed—couldn’t they at least do something about the river? If it has to be like this, they might as well just fill it in and turn it into a park.” Flushed with indignation, she really thought they could do it.
“And then, at night the tanuki badgers would come out, and they would give the old caretaker such a fright that young girls wouldn’t work here. There were no modern conveniences in those days—no automobiles or the like—and when
