The Wild Geese by Ōgai Mori Read Free Book Online

novices and led by a woman holding a long-handled lantern with the name of the theater written in red characters.
    He walked on in the same direction as this party, sometimes going ahead, sometimes falling behind.
    At last he reached his own house and went in.

Chapter Nine
    O TAMA , who had never been away from her father, was eager to know how he was. Yet, in spite of this desire, several days had passed without her being able to visit him. She was afraid that Suezo might come when she was out, and she feared that he would be annoyed if he did not find her. Usually he came at night and stayed until eleven, but he began to appear briefly at odd hours.
    The first time he came during the day he said, sitting down opposite her in front of the charcoal brazier: “I've dropped in on my way to an appointment. I'll just smoke a cigarette and go.”
    As a matter of fact, Otama seldom knew when he would come, so she didn't have the courage to leave. She might have slipped out in the morning, but she considered Ume an unreliable child. Moreover, Otama didn't want to be seen then or in the afternoon, for she didn't like the thought of the neighbors staring at her. She was so shy that at first she went to the bathhouse below the slope only after she had sent Ume out to see that it was not crowded.
    To make matters worse, on the third day after she had moved in, she had been frightened. She was already timid enough to give the situation more attention than it deserved. On first moving into Muenzaka, she had been called on by the vegetable dealer and the fishmonger. When she agreed to be their customer, they gave her an account book. On the day in question, when the fish had not been delivered, she sent Ume down the slope to get a few slices for lunch. Otama was not used to eating fish every day, having taken her meals without such delicacies. Nor had her father been particular about food as long as she had prepared it well and it was healthy for him. But once she had heard one of her neighbors at their old house saying that she and her father had bought no fish for several days. Remembering how embarrassed she had been then, Otama decided to send the girl for some. “If Ume thinks I'm trying to save money,” she reasoned, “then I'm being unfair to Suezo. He's not like that.”
    But a short while later the maid returned crying.
    â€œWhat is it? Tell me,” Otama said a number of times before the girl would speak.
    â€œI went into a fish market, but not the one we buy from. I looked around but couldn't see the dealer. And I thought: ‘Why, he's probably calling on customers after buying fresh fish at the waterfront.' And then I saw some mackerel looking like they'd just been pulled out of the water. ‘How much?' I ask the wife. ‘I've never seen you around here,' she says to me, not even telling me how much. ‘Whose house you from?' she asks. And when I told her, she began to make a face like she was angry. ‘Why!' she says. ‘Then I'm sorry for you. Go on back where you're from and tell your mistress we don't sell fish to the—whore of a usurer!' And then she turned her back on me, smoking her pipe, pretending I wasn't even there!”
    Ume had been too shocked and hurt to go to another shop and had run all the way back. And the simple girl, all the while making sympathetic gestures, told her mistress the entire story line by line.
    As Ume spoke, Otama's face turned pale, and for a while she could not answer. A mixture of feelings tumbled inside the inexperienced girl. It was impossible for her to disentangle her confused thoughts, but the total confusion put so heavy a strain upon the heart of a pure girl sold that all her blood seemed to be drawn into it, draining the color from her face and leaving her back chilled with cold perspiration.
    On these occasions an insignificant thought seems to take hold of us. Would Ume continue to serve her after this disgrace?
    As the girl