Tattooing

It was in those days when people had the virtue of stupidity and life was not yet busy as is today. It was in those happy days when life was so unrestrained that the gentle faces of nobles and young lords were not clouded; that the subjects for laughter for ladies-in-waiting and courtesans were abundant; and that the profession of clowns and buffoons who were paid for their talent of talkativeness, could exist. As the favourite heroines of the dramas and stories, such as Woman-Sadakuro, Woman-Jiraiya and Woman-Narukami, showed, all the beautiful were strong and all the ugly were weak in those days. Everybody, man and woman, contrived to look beautiful till pigments of bright colours were punctured into the naked body. Daring lines and gorgeous colours ran riot on the bodies of people of the day.

Visitors to the gay quarter beyond Umamichi (in Edo) tried to pick up such carriers of kago as had beautiful tattoos. The girls of the Yoshiwara and Tatsumi also loved men who were beautifully tattooed. Not only gamblers and firemen, but merchants and sometimes samurai were tattooed.

Exhibitions of tattooing were often held at Ryogoku, at which the participants, slapping their well-tattooed bodies, bragged of their striking patterns or commented on the works of others.

There was then a young tattooer of talent, called Seikichi. He was reputed to be not inferior to such famous tattooers as Charimon, of Asakusa, Yakkohei, of Matsushima Cho, and Konkon Jiro. Dozens of people already had had their bodies stripped before his brush⁠—like so many pieces of canvass. Most of the works which won universal praise at the exhibitions of tattooing came from his brush. Daruma Kin was said to be specially skilled in vignette style; Karakusa Gonta was known as a genius of rouge style; while Seikichi was noted for his striking patterns and gaudy style.

Seikichi, who had once earned his living by the profession of an ukiyo-e painter following the style of Toyokuni and Kunisada, retained something of the conscience and sentiment of an artist even after he had degenerated into being a tattooer. Persons who did not possess such skin and constitution as appealed to his artistic sense could not obtain the favour of his tattooing. Even when one obtained the favour, it was always understood that one must be prepared to accept the patterns and fee exactly as he desired, to say nothing of the pain of his needle which lasted for one month or two.

In the mind of this young tattooer were hidden a pleasure and a desire both of which were secret to other people. When his needle pricked the skin of people, the flesh become swollen and gathered blood, which caused them great pain. Most of them could not endure the pain without uttering groans. But the tattooer felt a strange pleasure in hearing these groans; and the louder the groans, the more pleasure he felt. Of the styles of tattooing, rouge and vignette styles were believed to be most painful⁠—and he was particularly pleased to use these methods. After having received five or six hundred pricks of the needle, an average number for a day, they took a bath for the purpose of obtaining a better effect; but when they came out of the bathroom, they were in a state of being half dead from pain. They threw themselves down at the feet of Seikichi, unable to move. On looking with a calm air at this wretched condition of his patron Seikichi would say:

“I am sure you must feel great pain,” and then he would laugh in a manner of self-complacency.

When it happened that a man of small power of resistance showed an ugly countenance by distorting his mouth and clenching his teeth, as if he were going to die, and cried like a child, the tattooer would say:

“You are a Yeddokko, aren’t you? Have patience, man. For this my needle is extraordinarily painful.”

So saying, he went on with his work unconcerned, giving only a side glance at the tear-stained man.

But when a man of strong nerve moved not a muscle of his face, remaining self-composed, the tattooer would say:

“I see, you have more courage than you would seem to have. But wait a bit, for you will soon begin to feel an awful pain and one which you cannot endure any longer,” and he would laugh, showing his white teeth.

His long-cherished desire was to get hold of a pretty girl and puncture his soul into her flesh. He had many requirements as to the physique and looks of the girl. He was not to be satisfied merely with a pretty face and smooth skin. But a girl whose quality and manner exactly met his demands could not be found even among the noted beauties of the demimonde of all Edo. He used to picture in his mind the possible appearance and features of the one he sought; but three or four years had passed away without bringing him the object of his desire. Nevertheless, he did not give up his wish.

It was one summer evening just in the fourth year. He was passing in front of the restaurant, Hirasei, of Fukagawa, when he caught sight of the white feet of a girl escaping from under the curtains of a kago. To his keen eyes, human feet presented different expressions just as their faces. And the feet of this girl were a precious gem of flesh for the tattooer. The perfect shape which was seen in all the five delicate toes from the great to the little toe; the colour of the nails which well matched the light pink colour of those shells which people gathered on the shore of Enoshima; the tournure of the ankles which reminded one of the rounded shape of a precious stone; and the dewiness of the skin, which appeared as if fresh water from a mountain brook had constantly washed the feet⁠—the feet of such qualities were, indeed, those which, having fed on the blood of men, would soon conquer their hearts. The owner of these feet must, thought he, be the girl he had long been looking for. Trying hard to quiet his dancing heart, Seikichi stole behind the kago in the hope to see the face of the unknown girl. He followed some distance; but soon lost the sight of the kago.

The vague desire of Seikichi had now turned into a strong love; and the fourth year went by. It was one morning towards the decline of spring in the fifth year. At his residence in Saga Cho, Fukagawa, he was looking at a pot of omoto (Rohdea japonica) on the verandah of bamboos, with a tooth pick in his mouth, when he heard a visitor’s voice at the back gate of this garden; and a girl who was not familiar to him, came in by the side gate of the bamboo-fence.

The girl was a messenger from a singing girl of Tatsumi who was Seikichi’s favourite.

“Mistress told me to hand you this coat and ask you to draw something on the lining,” said the girl, and untied her furoshiki of orange colour, producing a woman’s coat wrapped in a piece of cloth on which an actor’s stage face had been painted and a letter.

In the letter the writer made her request as to the lining of her coat in a sincere manner; and added that the girl who was sent as her messenger was soon about to make her début in public and that she hoped he would be good enough to show his favour towards the girl, although she did not like him to forget her for the sake of the girl.

“I thought your face was not familiar to me. You must then have come to this quarter lately.”

So saying, Seikichi looked at the girl with deep interest. She was about sixteen or seventeen years of age; but her face appeared strange in such an extremely well-defined shape as that of a middle-aged woman who had flirted with dozens of men, having spent a long time in the circles of the demimonde. Her looks were an incarnation of the dreams dreamed by many a gallant man and pretty woman who had lived and died in the capital where the crimes and fortunes of the whole empire poured in.

“About June last year you once returned from Hirakiyo in a kago, did you not?”

Thus inquiring, Seikichi made the girl sit on the verandah; and carefully looked at her delicate and naked feet resting on geta covered with Bingo matting.

“Yes. At that time father was still living, and I often went to Hirasei,” replied she with a laugh in answer to his curious question.

“It is now nearly five years since I have been looking for you. It is the first time I see your face; but I remember your feet. As I have got something to show you, come inside and make yourself at home.”

With these words, Seikichi, taking the girl by the hand as she tried to go home, led her to a room upstairs looking on the water of the Okawa. He then brought out two large scrolls; and unrolled one of them before the girl.

It was a picture showing Mohsi, favourite queen of a Chinese despot, King Chou. The queen was supporting against a balustrade her frail body which could hardly sustain the weight of her golden crown inlaid with emeralds and pearls, with the train of her silken robe trailing halfway down the staircase. The expression of the queen, who was drinking out of a large cup held in her right hand and who was looking at a prisoner about to be executed in the garden; the countenance of the man who was bending his head before the queen, waiting for his last moment with his limbs bound with an iron chain to a metal post, and with his eyes shut⁠—these details were drawn admirably to the point of ghastliness, free from any air of vulgarity such as is often observed in pictures of this kind.

The girl gazed for a moment at the picture; but gradually her eyes began to twinkle and her lips commenced to tremble in spite of herself. Strange to say, her face gradually took on a resemblance of that of the queen in the picture. She found in the picture her own image which had hitherto been unrevealed to her.

“Your mind is reflected in the picture,” said Seikichi, and laughed in a satisfied manner, looking into the face of the astonished girl.

“Why on earth have you shown me such a dreadful picture?” asked the girl, turning her pale face towards him.

“The woman in the picture is but you. The blood of the woman is running in your veins.”

And he unrolled the other scroll.

The picture was entitled Victims. In the centre thereof stood a young woman by the trunk of a cherry-tree, looking intently on the corpses of dozen men which were heaped in a disorderly manner at her feet. A number of small birds were encircling the woman, singing triumphant songs; and there was an expression of uncontrollable pride and satisfaction in her eyes⁠—did the picture represent a battlefield after a bloody engagement or a spring scene in a garden? The girl who was shown the picture felt as if she had found out something which had been concealed in her mind.

“This is a picture showing your future. The men who are fallen here are those who are going to lose their lives for you.”

So saying, Seikichi indicated the face of the woman in the picture which appeared exactly the same as that of the girl.

“For Heaven’s sake, take away this picture quickly,” implored the girl, sinking down with her face turned against the tatami away from the picture, as if she were trying to escape from a fearful temptation. But a moment later she said again with trembling lips:

“I confess, master. As you suppose, I have something of the nature of the woman in that picture. So, please don’t torment me any more and take it away.”

“Don’t talk in such a cowardly manner, my girl; but look at this picture more carefully. It will be only for the present that you are afraid of it.”

A smile of his usual sarcasm played on the face of Seikichi as he spoke thus.

But the head of the girl was not raised immediately. With her face buried in the sleeve of her juban, and with her head lowered for a long, long while, the girl repeated her plea several times:

“Master, please let me go. I feel some uneasiness when I am by your side.”

“Wait a moment. I will make a pretty girl of you.”

So saying, Seikichi went up to the girl in a nonchalant manner. In his pocket was concealed a bottle of chloroform which he had obtained from a Dutch doctor.

The sun shone brightly on the surface of the water, lighting up with a dazzling colour the room of eight mats. The rays of the sun reflected from the surface of the water threw golden shadows of waves which danced on the face of the girl sleeping in peace and on the paper of the shoji. Having closed up the partition of the room, Seikichi, with tattooing implements in his hands, sat for a moment lost in a state of trance. He could now for the first time take in calmly the beautiful features of the girl. He thought he could have sat still in the room for ten years, nay for hundred years, without being sated with observing the sleeping face. As the people of ancient Memphis decorated the fair land of Egypt with pyramids and Sphinx, Seikichi was now about to paint the chaste flesh of a human body with his love.

In the meantime, he placed flat on the back of the girl the point of his brush held between the thumb, ring and little fingers of the left hand; and made punctures with his needle with the right hand, tracing the lines marked by the brush. The young tattooer’s soul seemed to have been dissolved in his ink and permeated into the girl’s flesh. Each drop of Loochoo rouge which was inserted after having been mixed with a liquid, looked like a drop of his blood. Indeed, he saw the colour of his own heart therein.

Noon had already passed; and the peaceful spring day was now near its end; but the hand of Seikichi knew no rest and the profound sleep of the girl was not broken. The servant who came inquiring about the girl, as she had not returned after such a long absence, was sent back with a deceptive answer: “The girl you inquire about has gone home by herself long ago.”

Even at the time when the moon had risen over the mansion of Lord Tosa on the opposite side of the river, and its dreamlike beams streamed into the open rooms of the houses lining the river banks, the tattooing was not yet half done. Seikichi was busy trimming the wicks of his candles.

To inject by puncture just a drop of pigment was not a trifling matter for him. He heaved a deep sigh at every insertion of his needle which worked in and out of the flesh, feeling as if his own heart were being pricked. The marks of his needle began gradually to assume the form of a huge ojoro-spider. When another day was dawning, this strange animal of devilish nature covered the whole surface of the girl’s back, spreading its eight legs.

A spring night had passed, and daylight came with the quiet sound of oars of river-boats which plied on the water. When the tiled roofs of the houses in Nakasu, Hakozaki and Reiganjima commenced to shine through the mist which was fading away over the tops of white sails going downstream swelled with the morning breeze, Seikichi laid aside his brush at last; and gazed at the spider tattooed on the back of the girl. The work was, indeed, one which was worth his whole life. On finishing the work, he felt his mind as a void.

The shadows of the two persons remained unmoved in that position for a little while. And then a low and hoarse voice was heard, quivering in the room from wall to wall, which said:

“I have poured my soul into the tattooing in order to make a real girl of you. There is now no woman in all Japan who looks better than you. You have no longer a cowardly spirit as before. All kinds of men will prove your victims.”

These words may have awakened her senses, for a feeble, thin groan escaped the girl’s lips. She gradually recovered her consciousness. Deep breaths which shook her shoulders made the legs of the spider move as if alive.

“You must feel pain, for a spider grips your body.”

At these words the girl opened her eyes, small and inexpressive; but they gradually began to twinkle like the growing light of an evening moon; and finally shone upon the face of the man.

“Master, let me see the tattooing on my back soon. I must have become really beautiful, because I have gained your soul.”

The words of the girl sounded like a dream; but there was a note of firmness in their tone.

“Well, we must now go to the bathroom to tone the colour. It may be painful, but you must endure it,” said Seikichi in a soothing manner, with his mouth close to her ear.

“I don’t mind, if it is for my becoming beautiful,” answered the girl with a forced smile, trying to control the pain in her body.

“Ouch! Hot water hurts me so.⁠ ⁠… For heaven’s sake, leave me here. Go upstairs and wait for me there, please. I hate to be seen in such a wretched condition by a man.”

The girl, who had hardly finished wiping her wet body after the bath, threw herself prostrate upon the floor of the bathroom, overwhelmed by acute pain, pushing away the proffered hand of Seikichi. She began to groan as if possessed by a devil. Dishevelled hair hang over her cheeks in an annoying manner. Behind the girl stood a looking-glass which reflected the soles of two white feet.

Seikichi was surprised how the attitude of the girl had changed from the previous day; but went upstairs as he was asked. He waited there for about half an hour, when the girl came up, dressed neatly, with her damp hair streaming down over her shoulders. Raising her bright eyebrows which showed no trace of her former agony, she looked up into the hazy sky, leaning against the railing.

“I will give you this picture along with your tattooing, so that you had better go home with it now.”

So saying, Seikichi placed the scroll before the girl.

“Master, I have now entirely gotten rid of my former cowardly spirit. You have become my first victim,” said the girl, her keen eyes twinkling. An image of the “victims” was now reflected in her eyes. A song of triumph sounded in her ears.

“But show me your tattooing once more before you go,” asked Seikichi.

The girl nodded in silence; and doffed her garment. At the very moment, the bright morning sun shone on the tattooing; and the girl’s back burnt with golden hues.