Short Fiction quotes

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.

“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.

“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 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.

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.

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.

There intervened a few moments of silence. They had covered about five or six yards in silence when, all of a sudden, a crisp voice snapped, right under his nose, in an unexpected taunt—

“No more words out of your foul mouth, you drunken fool!”

Shinsuké was scarcely given the time to reason out the challenge which was not to be imagined as coming from Santa. For, almost as instantly, the cold point of a blade slashed into his shoulder.

Apart from the shock to his nerves, he still felt in himself, despite several wounds suffered, the presence of so much animal force that he marveled,

“How easy a work it was to kill a man!”

What claimed his attention next, was the question whether he should run away or surrender himself to the law.

Or, can it mean that you yourself, knowing of the worst in the trade of the geisha, have become rotten even to your heart?”

“Rotten⁠—yes, rotten I am! Have no more goodness to think of my papa or mama⁠—not even in my dreams!”

She pulled herself up with wilful petulance. As suddenly almost, she turned and collapsed, burying her face on his shoulder; she began to appeal and beseech, in a voice broken by violent sobs.

I die, but my curse be on your head!” With this outburst on his lips, Tokubey gave a convulsive shudder. In the same instant, a second blow was sent through his heart. One sharp whine of pain, hanging yet on the other’s arms, he stiffened.

“What of the curse of a gutter rat! Serves you right, too!”

said Tsuya.