Chapter 22 Chapter Twenty Two

Upon arrival in Hakone, the Baron's driver dropped me off at his summer resort, in a beautiful wooded area by the lake.Many of the baron's guests turned to look at me as I stepped out of the car, dressed in the finery of an apprentice geisha from Kyoto.Then the baron and some guests came striding down the forest path. "Ah, this is what we've all been waiting for!" he said. "This cute little thing is Sayuri from Gion. I can guarantee that you will never see eyes like her in the future. You have to wait to see how she walks... Sayuri, please come here, so that every guest Everyone has a chance to see you, your mission is very important. You have to go around, go to the house, go to the lake, go to the woods, go everywhere! Come on, get to work now!"

I began to walk around the villa as the baron had ordered, bowing to the guests so that no one could see that I was looking for the president.By the afternoon I had almost given up hope, but when I went inside to find a place to rest, I froze.Here he is, coming out of a tatami room talking to another person.The president turned around and saw me. "Sayuri!" he said, "how did the Baron get you all the way from Kyoto? I really didn't expect you to know him." I know I should take my eyes off the president, but it's like pulling a nail out of the wall.I bowed to him and said, "Miss Mameha asked me to replace her. It's an honor to meet the president, I'm so happy."

"Yes, I am glad to meet you too. You can advise me. Come and see the present I brought to the Baron." I followed him into the tatami room, feeling like a kite being pulled in by a string.He took something from the table and showed it to me.The chairman told me that this piece was made by the artist Gonroku Nitta during the Edo period.It is a gilded pillow-shaped box with flying cranes and hopping rabbits painted in soft black. "Do you think the Baron would like it?" he said. "President, how can you think the baron will not like it?" "Well, that man has everything in his collection, and he probably treats it as third-rate stuff."

I assure the president that no one thinks that way.He nodded and walked towards the door, motioning for me to come with him.At the door, I help him put on his shoes.As I slipped his foot in with my fingers, I found myself imagining the afternoon we would spend together, and the long night.This thought made me startled, and when I came back to my senses, I don't know how long it had been.The chairman didn't mean to be impatient at all, but I felt it was too inappropriate, so I hurriedly put on the clogs, which were also much slower than usual. Arriving at the lake, we see the baron sitting with three Tokyo geisha on a cushion under a cherry blossom tree.They all stood up, but the baron was a little unsteady, for he had had too much wine.

"I came to thank you and say goodbye, but first I have something to give you." He handed the makeup case over.The baron was too drunk to untie the silk cloth, so he gave it to a geisha to untie it. "What a beautiful thing!" said the Baron. "Oh, President, it may be even more beautiful than the little cutie standing beside you. Do you know Sayuri? If not, let me introduce you." "Oh, we are very familiar, Sayuri and I." The president said. "How familiar, President? Are you familiar enough to make me jealous?" The baron laughed out loud after finishing his joke. "Anyway, Sayuri, this generous gift reminds me that I have something to give you. But I won't give it to you until the geishas are gone, lest they want it too. So you have to keep it until everyone else is gone Finish."

If the baron hadn't been so drunk, I'm sure he'd want to see the president out by himself.After the two said goodbye to each other, I followed the president back to the villa.His driver opened the door for him, and he was about to get into the car when it stopped again. "Sayuri," he said, and seemed to be at a loss for what to say, "how did Mameha tell you about the baron?" "Not much, sir. Or at least . . . well, I don't know what the President means." "Mameha is your good sister, right? Did she tell you what you should know?" "Ah, yes, President. It's hard for me to describe how Mameha helped me."

"Oh," he said, "if I were you, I'd be careful if someone like the Baron wanted to send you something." I didn't know how to answer, so I had to say that the baron was very kind to me and always thought of me. "Yes, I believe he is very good to you. Be careful yourself." He finished, looked at me seriously for a while, and then got into the car. For the next hour, I circled among the few remaining guests, thinking over and over again everything the President had said to me when I was with him.As it was getting dark, I found myself standing alone in the vestibule.After ten or a quarter of an hour the baron finally stepped into the antechamber.I felt uneasy when I saw him, wearing only a cotton bathrobe, obviously just out of the shower.I stood up and bowed to him.In his hand was a flat box, wrapped in linen paper.I knew it was a kimono without looking.

"I saw that day how much you liked the robe. You wanted to give it to you," he said. The baron put the parcel on the table, untied the string, and opened it.I thought it was the kimono embroidered with the scene of Kobe, but when the Baron opened the package, I saw a gorgeous black fabric with silver lacquer thread embroidery.The baron lifted his robes over his shoulders.He told me it was a museum kimono made in the 1860s for the niece of Yoshiki Tokugawa, the last shogun.The floral decoration on the robe is a few silver birds flying under the night sky, and the lower edge of the skirt is a mysterious black tree and rock.

"You have to come with me and try it on," he said. I have no choice.The baron took my hand and led me to a spacious tatami room with a row of mirrors on one wall. This was his dressing room. He asked me to stand in front of the mirror, raised my hand to his lips, rolled my sleeve down to my wrist, and smelled the smell of my skin.Then he came around behind me and started to undo my belt.Realizing that the baron was really going to undress me, I stopped him with my hand, but he pushed my hand away.My throat was so dry that I opened my mouth several times, but nothing came out.I saw the chairman's handkerchief fall out of his clothes and fall to the ground.Finally the belt was undone, slipped through the baron's fingers, and fell to the ground.My legs trembled, he pinched the front of my undershirt and pulled it to both sides, the room was blurred, I couldn't help but grab his hand again.

"Sayuri, don't worry!" the baron said softly to me. "By God, I won't do anything to you that I shouldn't do. I just want to see you, do you understand? It doesn't matter." When he was talking, the oily mustache on his face touched my ears, and I had to turn my head away.I think he took this gesture as a sign of agreement, because he was more eager to do it.My kimono underwear was open, revealing a line of skin from my chest down.Then he was busy untying my waistband, and after a few tugs, he finally loosened the belt.I heard a sobbing sound in my throat as the silk slid over my skin.I grabbed the roll with my hands, and the baron pulled it over and dropped it on the floor.As if undressing a sleeping child, he held his breath and slowly opened my underwear, as if pulling away the covering of something sacred.I felt a burning sensation in my throat. I held back my tears and looked at the mirror from the corner of my eye.I certainly had never seen myself so naked.Although I still have foot bags on my feet, I feel more naked now with my underwear wide open than in the bathroom with nothing on.I saw the Baron's eyes linger here and there on me in the mirror.At first he opened the clothes a little more and smacked the curve of my waist.Then he lowered his eyes and observed the blackness that had only flourished in the past few years since I arrived in Kyoto.His gaze stayed there for a long time, and finally moved slowly up, past my chest, down my ribs to a pair of dark red circles, first one side, then the other.

For a moment the Baron's breathing slowed and he finally took off my underwear.My tears couldn't stop falling, but soon the Baron was out.As soon as he was gone, I frantically began to dress myself, kneeling on the ground to gather my various attire.Like a starving child grabbing all kinds of food. I tried my best to get dressed with trembling hands.But without help, I had to put on my slip and belt.After only a few minutes, the Baron came back, without a word, helped me into my kimono, and then tied my kimono obi like Mr. Itchoda.With his arm around my long kimono obi, he measured the length round and round so that he could wrap it around me.I was like a house in the rain, and the rain was pouring down in front of me.The Baron must have seen it, for he left the room and returned a moment later with a handkerchief with his initials on it.He told me to keep it, but I left it on the table when I was done using it. Soon he took me out the door and left without saying a word.The driver took me back to the hotel.Mr. Itchota scratched his chin as soon as he saw me, as if he fully understood what was going on.As he was taking off my kimono obi in the upstairs room, he said, "Has the Baron undressed you?" "Sorry." I said. "He undressed you, looked at you in the mirror, but he didn't enjoy you. He didn't touch you, or get on top of you, did he?" "Yes, sir." "That's good." Mr. Itchoda said, looking straight ahead.We didn't say anything else.