There was a sarcastic smile at the corners of her thin lips. "I would imagine that over the years you've made a great many women weep."
"What an idea!" Eguchi was caught off balance.
"I think you protest too much."
"I wouldn't be coming here if I were that kind of man. The old men who come here still have their attachments. But struggling and moaning won't bring anything back."
"I wonder." There still was no change in her expression.
"I asked you last time. What is the worst they can get by with?"
"Having the girl asleep, I should think."
"Can I have the same medicine?"
"I believe I had to refuse you last time."
"What is the worst thing an old man can do?"
"There are no bad things in this house." She lowered her youthful voice, which seemed to impose itself upon him with a new force.
"No bad things?"
The woman's dark eyes were calm. "Of course, if you were to try to strangle one of the girls, it would be like wrenching the arm of a baby."
The remark was distasteful. "She wouldn't even wake up then?"
"I think not."
"Made to order if you wanted to commit suicide and take someone with you."
"Please do, if you feel lonely about doing it by yourself."
"And when you're too lonely even to suicide?"
"I suppose there are such times for old people." As always, her manner was calm. "Have you been drinking? You're not making a great deal of sense."
"I've had something worse than liquor."
She glanced at him briefly. "The one tonight is very warm." She said as if to make light of his words. "Just right for a cold night like this. Warm yourself with her." And she went downstairs.
Eguchi opened the door to the secret room. The sweet smell of woman was stronger than usual. The girl lay with her back to him. She was breathing heavily, though not quite snoring. She seemed to be a large girl. He could not be certain in the light from the crimson velvet curtains, but her rich hair may have had a reddish cast. The skin from the full ears over the round neck was extraordinarily white. She seemed, as the woman had said, very warm, and yet she was not flushed.
"Ah!" He cried out involuntary as he slipped behind her.
She was indeed warm. Her skin was so smooth that it seemed to cling to him. From its moistness came the scent. He lay still for a time, his eyes closed. The girl too lay still. The flesh was rich at the hips and below. The warmth less sank into him than enveloped him. Her bosom was full, but the breasts seemed low and wide, and the nipples were remarkably small. The woman had spoken of strangulation. He remembered now and trembled at the thought, because of the girl's skin. If he were to strangle her, what sort of scent would she give off? He forced upon himself a picture of the girl in the daytime, and, to subdue the temptation, he gave her an awkwardness gait. The excitement faded. But what was awkwardness in a walking girl? What were well shaped legs? What, for a sixty seven year old man with a girl who was probably for the one night only, were intelligence, culture, barbarity? He was but touching her. And, put to sleep, she knew nothing of the fact that an ugly old man was touching her. Nor would she know tomorrow. Was she a toy, a sacrifice? Old Eguchi had come to this house only four times, and yet the feeling that with each new visit there was a new numbness inside him was especially strong tonight.
Was this girl also well trained? Perhaps because she had come to think nothing of the sad old men who where her guests, she did not respond to Eguchi's touch. Any kind of inhumanity, given practice, becomes human. All the varieties of transgression are buried in the darkness of the world. But Eguchi was a little different from the other old men who frequented the house. Indeed he was very different. Old Kiga, who had introduced him, had been wrong when he thought Eguchi like the rest of them. Eguchi had not ceased to be a man. It might therefore be said that he did not feel the sorrow and happiness, the regrets and loneliness, as intensely as the others. It was not necessary for him that the girl remain asleep.
There had been his second visit, when, with that witch of a girl, he had come close to violating the rule of the house, and had pulled himself back in his astonishment at finding that she was a virgin. He had vowed then to observe the rule, to leave the sleeping beauties in peace. He had vowed to respect the old mens's secret. It did seem to be the case that all the girls of the house were virgins. And to what sort of solicitude did that attest? Was it the wish if the old men, a wish that approached the mournful? Eguchi thought he understood, and he also thought it foolish.
But he was suspicious of the one tonight. He found it hard to believe that she was a virgin. Raising his chest to her shoulder, he looked into her face. It was not as well put together as her body. But it was more innocent than he would have expected. The nostrils were somewhat distended, and the bridge of the nose was low. The cheeks were broad and round. A widow's peak came low over her forehead. The short eyebrows were heavy and regular.
"Very pretty." muttered old Eguchi, pressing his cheek to hers, It too was smooth and moist. Perhaps because his weight was heavy against her shoulder, she turned face up. Eguchi pulled away.
He lay for a time with eyes closed, for the girl's scent was unusually strong. It is said that the sense of smell is the quickest to call up memories. But was this not too thick and sweet a smell? Eguchi thought of the milky smell of a baby. Even though the two were utterly different, were they not somehow basic to humanity? From ancient times old men had sought to use the scent given off by girls as an elixir of youth. The scent of the girl tonight could not have been called fragrant. Were he to violate the rule of the house, there would be an objectionably sharp and carnal smell. But was the fact that it came to him as objectionable a sign that Eguchi was already senile? Was not this sort of heavy, sharp smell the basis of human life? She seemed like a girl who could easily be made pregnant. Although she had been put to sleep, her physiological processes had not stopped, and she would awaken in the course of the next day. Is she were to become pregnant, it would be quite without her knowledge. Suppose Eguchi, now sixty seven, were to leave such a child behind. It was the body of woman that invited man into the lower circles of hell.
She had been stripped of all defenses, for the sake of her aged guest, of the sad old man. She was naked, and she would not awaken. Eguchi felt a wave of pity for her. A thought came to him: the aged have death, and the young have love, and death comes once, and love comes over and over again. It was a thought for which he was unprepared, but it calmed him… not that he had been especially overwrought. From outside there came the faint rustle of sleet. The sound of the sea had faded away. Old Eguchi could see the great, dark sea, on which the sleet fell and melted. A wild bird like a great eagle flew skimming the waves, something in its mouth dripping blood. Was it not a human infant? It could be. Perhaps it was the specter of human iniquity. He shook his head gently on the pillow and the specter went away.
"Warm, warm." said Eguchi.
It was not only the electric blanket. She had thrown off the quilt, and her bosom, rich and wide but somewhat wanting in emphasis, was half exposed. The fair skin was slightly tinged in the light from the crimson velvet. Gazing at the handsome bosom, he traced the peaked hairline with her finger. She continued to breathe quietly and slowly. What sort of teeth would be behind the small lips? Taking the lower lip at its center he opened it slightly. Though not small in proportion to the size of her lips, her teeth were small all the same, and regularly ranged. He took away his hand. Her lips remained open. He could still see the tips of her teeth. He rubbed off some of the lipstick at his fingertips on the full earlobe, and the rest on the round neck. The scarcely visible smear of red was pleasant against the remarkably white skin.
Yes, she would be a virgin. Having had doubts about the girl on his second night, and having been startled at his own baseness, he felt no impulse to investigate. What was it to him? Then, as he began to think that it indeed was something to him, he seemed to hear a derisive voice.
"Is it some devil in there trying to laugh at me?"
"Nothing as simple, I'm afraid. You're making too much of your own sentimentality, and your dissatisfaction at not being able to die."
"I'm trying think for old men who are sadder than I am."
"Scoundrel. Someone who puts the blame on others is not fit to be ranked with the scoundrels."
"Scoundrel? Very well, a scoundrel. But why is a virgin pure, and another woman not? I haven't asked for virgins."
"That's because you don't know real senility. Don't come to this place again. If by a chance in a million, a chance in a million, a girl were to open her eyes… aren't you underestimating the shame?"
Something like a self interrogation passed through Eguchi's mind. But of course it did not establish that only four times, he was puzzled that all four girls should have been virgins. Was it the demand, the hope of the old men that they should be?
If the girl should awaken… the thought had a strong pull. Of she were to open her eyes, even in a daze, how intense would the shock be, of what sort would it be? She would probably not go on sleeping if, for instance, he were to cut her arm almost off or stab her on the chest or abdomen.
"You're depraved." he muttered to himself.
The impotence of the other old men was probably not very far off Eguchi himself. Thoughts of atrocities rose in him: destroy this house, destroy his own life too, because the girl tonight was not what could have been called a regular featured beauty, because he felt close to him a pretty girl with her broad bosom exposed. He felt something like contrition turned upon itself. And there was contrition too for a life that seemed likely to have a timid ending. He did not have the courage of his youngest daughter, with whom he had gone to see the camellia. He closed his eyes again.
Two butterflies were sporting in low shrubbery along the stepping stones of a garden. They disappeared in the shrubbery, they brushed against it, they seemed to be enjoying themselves. They flew slightly higher and danced lightly in and out, and another butterfly appeared from the leaves, and another. Two sets of mates, he thought… and then there were five, all whirling about together. Was it a flight? But butterflies appeared one after another from the shrubbery, and the garden was a dancing swarm of white butterflies, close to the ground. The down swept branches of a maple waved in a wind that did not seem to exist. The twigs were delicate and, because the leaves were large, sensitive to the wind. The swarm of butterflies had so grown that it was like a field of white flowers, The maple leaves here had quite fallen. A few shriveled leaves might still be clinging to the branches, but tonight it was sleeting.
Eguchi had forgotten the cold of the sleet. Was that dancing swarm of white butterflies brought by the ample white bosom of the girl, spread put here beside him? Was there something in the girl to quiet the bad impulses in an old man? He opened his eyes. He gazed at the small pink nipples. They were like a symbol of good. He put a cheek to them. The back of his eyelids seemed to warm. He wanted to leave his mark on the girl. Of he were to violate the rule of the house, she would be in dismay when she awoke. He left on her breasts several marks the color of blood. He shivered.
"You'll be cold." He pulled up the quilt. He drank down both of the tablets at his pillow. "A bit heavy in the lower parts." He reached down and pulled her toward him.
The next morning he was twice around by the woman of the house. The first time she rapped in the door.
"It's nine o'clock, sir."
"I'm getting up. I imagine it's cold out there."
"I lit the stove early.'
"What about the sleet?"
"It's cloudy, but the sleet has stopped."
"Oh!"
"I've had your breakfast ready for some time."
"I see." With this indifferent answer, he closed his eyes again. "A devil will be coming for you…" he said. He brought himself against the remarkable skin of the girl.
In no more than ten minutes the woman come again.
"Sir!" This time she rapped sharply. "Are you back in bed?" Her voice too was sharp.
"The door isn't locked." he said. The woman came in. Sluggishly, he pulled himself up. She helped him into his clothes. She even put on his socks, but her touch was unpleasant. In the next room the tea was, as always, good. As he sipped at it, she turned a cold, suspicious eye on him.
"And how was she? Did you like her?"
"Well enough, I suppose."
"That's good. And did you have pleasant dreams?"
"Dreams? None at all. I just slept. It's been a long time since I slept so well." He yawned openly. "I'm still not wide awake."
"I imagine you were tired last night."
"It was her fault. Does she come here often?"
The woman looked down, her expression severe.
"I have a special request." he said. His manner was serious. "When I've finished breakfast, will you let me have some more sleeping medicine? I'll pay extra. Not that I know when the girl will awake up."
"Completely out of question." The woman's face had taken on a muddy pallor, and her shoulders were rigid. "You're really going too far."
"Too far?" He tried to laugh, but the laugh refused to come.
Perhaps suspecting that Eguchi had done something to the girl, she went hastily into the room.