Free The Wild Geese by Ōgai Mori

certain degree of moderation, of gentility. Otsune felt that the other woman lacked this element of exaggerated behavior.
    The woman in front of the shop, faintly conscious of some passerby stopping, had looked around. But not noticing anything special about the stranger, she had once more turned, and with her parasol propped between her knees, which were pulled inward, she looked for some small silver coins in the purse she had withdrawn from her sash.
    The shop, on the southern side of Naka-cho, was called Tashigaraya, an unusual name that was parodied in an anonymous and satiric poem, for when it was read backwards it referred to an indecent act. Among the shop's goods was a kind of tooth-powder packaged in a red paper bag with characters printed in gold. At that time toothpaste had not yet been imported, and this product was known for its smooth quality. After her early morning visit to her father, Otama had stopped to purchase some of it on the way home.
    When Otsune had passed Otama by some several steps, her maid whispered: “Okusan! That's the woman of Muenzaka!” Otsune nodded silently, but the maid seemed disappointed, as though her words had no effect.
    When Otsune had concluded that the woman was not a geisha, she had instinctively said: “Ah, the Muenzaka woman!” This intuition was aided by her recognition that the maid would not have tugged at her sleeve merely for the sake of calling her attention to a beautiful woman, but another unexpected item had influenced her: the parasol between Otama's knees.
    A little more than a month ago, Otsune's husband had brought her a parasol as a gift on his return from Yokohama, one with a long handle out of proportion to the spread of the cloth. It would have been all right for a tall foreigner to toy with, but when the squat Otsune carried it, it resembled, to make an extreme comparison, a swaddling cloth attached to the top of a clothesrod. So Otsune had never used it. Its cloth was of white ground with a fine checkered pattern dyed in indigo. And Otsune had immediately recognized that the woman standing in front of the Tashigaraya owned the same kind of parasol.
    Otsune and her maid turned toward the pond at the corner of a saké dealer's shop, and the maid said propitiatingly: “You see, Okusan, she's not a very pretty woman. Her face is flat and she's too tall!”
    â€œYou shouldn't speak ill of a person.” This, said in a reprimanding tone, was the sole answer the maid got from her mistress, who walked on quickly. The maid followed with an injured expression on her face.
    Otsune was inwardly raging. She was unable to think clearly. As she walked toward her house, she didn't know how to approach her husband or what to say to him, yet she felt compelled to attack him somehow, to speak, to say something. How delighted she had been when he had bought her that parasol, when he had actually given it to her! “I always had to ask for something from him,” she thought. And when he had said: “For you. Take it,” she couldn't help asking herself: “What's this for? Why's he turned kind so suddenly?” Now she knew that he had given it to her as an afterthought. That woman had asked him for one—she was certain of that now. And knowing nothing, she had thanked him, thanked him for a parasol she couldn't even use! “And not only that,” she said to herself, “but he gave her that kimono and those ornaments in her hair. He gave them to her!”
    Otsune glanced at her own sateen parasol. How different it was from that other one of foreign make! “Everything I'm wearing is different from hers!”
    Nor did Otsune merely worry about herself. “A tight-sleeved kimono will do for the boy,” Suezo had said. “As for the girl, don't waste money by dressing her up now. She's too young.”
    Were ever the wife and children of a man worth thousands and thousands of yen so poorly dressed as she and her