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Extracts from the novel

His face was very heavily creased, and into each crease he had tucked some worry or other, so that it wasn’t really his own face any longer, but more like a tree that had nests of birds in all the branches.

Just as seaweed is naturally soggy, you see, but turns brittle as it dries, my mother was giving up more and more of her essence.

His arms were sticks wrapped in old leather, dangling from two bumps.

I’d been blown about like a scrap of paper in the wind.

I felt a persistent, icy dread at the thought of any mother’s illness.

For a moment we were both awash in sparks and flames.

The day was drab, everything in shades of gray.

I felt as a dam must feel when it’s holding back an entire river.

The sky was extravagant with stars.

I felt as sore as a rock must feel when the waterfall has pounded on it all day long

Which couldn’t have been further from the truth.

All my senses were assaulted. Trucks rumbled past to close. I could smell the scorched rubber odor of their tires.

And then as if the day hadn’t been difficult enough, the worst thing of all happened.

My eyes had welled up with tears so much I could scarcely see.

But the tears pooled in my eyes before I could think of how to stop them

I felt a knob in my stomach.

I felt a jolt when I set eyes on them.

Willowy shape

A strip of bright sunlight fell across

Stood erect

Weaving its way from the hem up to the waist was a beautiful vine made of heavily lacquered threads bunched together like a tiny cable and sewn into place.

I heard thunder rumble overhead, and the air smelled of rain.

A certain thought was swelling in my head, growing until I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

I didn’t allow myself to picture my mother quite so vividly; just the thought of seeing her again was enough to bring tears to my tears.

I felt a pit inside myself as big and empty as if the whole world were nothing more than a giant hall empty of people.

This humble person has been alive long enough to see two generations of children grow up, and know how rare it is for ordinary birds to give birth to a swan. The swan who goes on living its parents’ tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way in the world.

The tears had begun to flow out of me just like water from a pot that boils over.

Mr. Tanaka had brought me nothing but suffering; but he also changed my horizons forever. We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.

As I thought of this my mind began to swirl like a hurricane.

Though I am sure my words carried none of the fullness of my feelings.

I cleared my mind of everything but the image of him and the feeling of warm sun on my face and the hard stone wall where I’d sat that day when I met him.

I am no more a rival to her than a puddle is a rival to the ocean.

I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has though about-the tiny hole through the roof or the bottom of a box. There is no doubt it’s the most versatile of the five elements. It can wash away earth; it can put out fire; it can wear a piece of metal down and sweep it away.

She was gong to use me in the role of a weed that chokes out other plants in the garden.

Her eyes never met mine for more than a flicker of an instant.

My mind on the eve of my debut was like a garden in which the flowers have only begun to poke their faces up through the soil.

A man is interested in only one thing.

A sprinkle of laughter fell down onto us from the second-story windows brightly lit overhead.

You ought to feel flattered, really, considering that Hatsumomo geos to such trouble just to torment you.

Like a ball tossed in the air that seems to hang motionless before it falls, I felt myself suspended in a state of quiet timelessness.

I felt myself wading though an ocean of sorrow.

But every night I lay on my futon with his handkerchief pressed against my cheek, reliving again and again my encounter with him. I was like a temple bell that resonates long after it has been struck.

The comb was a showy red color adorned with bright flowers.

Accentuate the angles

The gloomy atmosphere seemed as thick as the water in a pond that night.

Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they come old women they look silly earing even one.

The radiant smile she’s worn now faded, just as the darkness fades from a valley when the sun rises on it.

I felt I was standing on a stage many hours after the dance had ended, when the silence lay as heavily upon the empty theater as a blanket of snow. I went to our okiya and stared with longing at the heavy iron padlock on the door. When I was locked in, I want to be out. Now life had changed so much that, finding myself locked out, I wanted to be inside again.