“…At the temple there is a poem called “Loss” carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it…”
Arthur Golden ― Memoirs of a Geisha
“…At the temple there is a poem called “Loss” carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it…”
Arthur Golden ― Memoirs of a Geisha
“….Auntie painted onto the back of Hatsumomo’s neck a design called sanbon-ashi “three legs.” It makes a very dramatic picture, for you feel as if you’re looking at the bare skin of the neck through little tapering points of a white fence. It was years before I understood the erotic effect it has on man…”
Memoirs of a Geisha
“…If you’ve never seen a shamisen, you might find it’s a peculiar-looking instrument. Some people call it a Japanese guitar, but actually it’s a good deal smaller than a guitar, with a thin wooden neck that has three large tuning pegs at the end. The body is just a little wooden box with cat skin stretched over the top like a drum. The entire instrument can be taken apat and put into a box or a bag, which is how it is carried about…”
“…Pumpkin assembled her shamisen and began to tune it with her tongue poking out, but I’m sorry to say that her ear was very poor, and the notes went up and down like a boat on the waves, without ever settling down where they were supposed to be…”
Memoirs of a Geisha
“… Down at the end of the long hallway stood a group of six or eight girls. I felt a jolt when I set eyes on them, because I thought one might be Satsu; but when they turned to look at us I was disappointed. They all wore the same hairstyle – the Wareshinobu of a young apprentice geisha – and looked to me as if they knew much more about Gion than either Pumpkin or I would ever know…”
Memoirs of a Geisha
“…We had reached Shijo Avenue by now and crossed it in silence. This was the same avenue that had been so crowded the day Mr. Bekku had brought Satsu and me from the station. Now so early in the morning, I could see only a single streetcar in the distance and a few bicylists here and there. When we reached the other side, we continued up a narrow street, and then Pumpkin stopped for the first time since we’d left the okiya…”
Memoirs of a Geisha