dancer. [To himself] Dancer, indeed. I can imagine the kind of dancer she is.
KIYOKO: Please listen to what I have to say without interrupting.
DEALER [sitting on one of the chairs]: Very well. I'm listening. I won't interrupt. But to think that someone so young, with such a beautiful, sweet face -
KIYOKO: Yes. That's what I want to talk to you about - my beautiful, sweet face.
DEALER [to himself]: How cheeky they are, the girls these days!
KIYOKO: Yasushi was my lover.
DEALER: The young man who got killed inside the wardrobe?
KIYOKO: Yes. He was my lover, but he jilted me and became the lover of Mrs Sakurayama, a woman ten years older than himself. He - yes, that's right - he was the kind of man who always prefers to be loved.
DEALER: That was too bad for you.
KIYOKO: I thought you said you weren't going to interrupt -
Perhaps, I can't be sure, it was my love that drove him away.
Yes, that may have been it. Rather than a happy, easy-going, open love affair, he preferred uneasiness, secrecy, fear - that sort of thing. He was such a handsome boy. When the two of us went out walking together, everybody would say what a perfectly matched couple we made. When we walked together, the blue sky, the woods in the park, the birds - they all were glad to welcome us. The blue sky and the night sky filled with stars belonged to us, you might say. And yet, he chose the inside of a wardrobe.
DEALER: This wardrobe's so big. Maybe there was a sky inside it with stars, and a moon coming up from one corner and sinking in another.
KIYOKO: Yes, he slept inside, woke up inside, and sometimes he ate his meals inside. In this strange, windowless room, this room where the wind never blew and trees never rustled, a room like a coffin, a tomb where he was buried alive. He chose to live in a coffin even before he was killed. A room of pleasure and of death, enveloped in the lingering scent of the woman's perfume, and the odour of his own body.... His body smelled of jasmine.
135
DEALER [ gradually warming to the description]: Buried, not among flowers, but among her racks on racks of clothes. '
KIYOKO: Lace flowers, satin flowers, cold, dead, strong-scented flowers.
DEALER [to himself ]: It was damned clever of him. I'd like to die that way myself.
KIYOKO: He died exactly as he hoped. I understand that quite clearly now. And yet, why did he do it ? What did he want to run away from ? What was he trying so desperately to escape that he preferred to die?
DEALER: I'm afraid I'm not much help answering that.
KIYOKO: I'm sure what he wanted to escape was me. [They are both silent.1 Tell me, what could have made him do it? Run away from me, from such a beautiful, sweet face. Perhaps his own beauty gave him all the beauty he could stand.
DEALER: You've got nothing to complain about. Some women spend their whole lives furious at their own ugly faces. Any number yearn for lost youth. You've got beauty and youth, and still you complain. That's asking too much.
KIYOKO : Nobody else ever ran away from my youth and beauty.
He spurned the only two treasures I own.
DEALER: Yasushi isn't the only man, you know. There must've been something abnormal about his tastes, anyway. Take a man like myself, a man whose tastes are completely healthy... [He extends one hand towards her.]
KIYOKO [striking his hand sharply]: Stop it. Desire on any other man's face except his turns my stomach. It's as if I saw a toad.
... Look at me carefully. I've become old, haven't I?
DEALER: Don't make me laugh. With your youth -
KIYOKO: But I'm ugly.
DEALER: If you're ugly, then there aren't any beautiful women left in the world.
KIYOKO: You've failed on both questions. If you had said that I was old and ugly, who knows, I might have given myself to you.
DEALER: I know a bit about the psychology of women myself.
Now I'm supposed to repeat, 'Whatever can you be saying?
Never, though I died for it, could I possibly utter so dreadful a lie as to say that you were old and ugly.' Am I right ?
136
KIYOKO: HOW tedious you are. What is it in my face that attracts men I can't stand? I'd like to rip the skin away with my own hands - that's the one dream, the one fantasy left me now. Sometimes I wonder if he wouldn't have loved me better if my face had become hideous and repulsive.
DEALER: The crazy dreams that young, beautiful people have! I long ago became immune to such illogical dreams. Discontent, young lady, is a poison which upsets all the sane principles of the world and makes a mess of your own happiness.
KIYOKO: Discontent! You think you can sum me up with that little word! That's not the kind of world I live in. Something was missing somewhere - a cogwheel - that could have made it possible for him and myself to love each other for ever, for the machine to run smoothly. I've discovered what the missing cogwheel was. It was my face turned hideous.
DEALER: The world is full of missing cogwheels. I don't know about your machine, but it seems to me, at least as far as this globe is concerned, that the one thing that keeps it spinning smoothly is the cogwheels missing here and there.
KIYOKO: Still, if my dream were to come true...
DEALER: Surely he wouldn't come back to life.
KIYOKO: You're wrong. I think he might.
DEALER: YOU keep asking for more and more impossible things.
Now you're thought up something really horrible. You're trying to deny nature.
KIYOKO: Once in a while even a pitiful old miser like yourself is capable of saying something intelligent. You're quite right. My enemy, my rival for his love, was not Mrs Sakurayama. It was nature itself, my beautiful face, the rustle of the woods embracing us, the gracefully shaped pines, the blue sky damp after a rain.
Yes, every unadorned thing was the enemy of our love. Then he left me and ran off into this wardrobe, into a world painted in varnish, a world without windows, a world lit only by an electric bulb.
DEALER: I suppose that's why you have your heart set on buying the wardrobe - you want to try to find your dead lover again inside.
KIYOKO: Yes, I'll spread the word; I'll tell the history of this 137
wardrobe to everybody who might conceivably buy it; I'll disillusion them. I must have this wardrobe and at my price, three thousand yen.
[As she finishes these words, strange inarticulate cries, like those made by the drummers in a no play, are heard from the left, together with sounds resembling the no drums and flute. These accompany the dialogue in the following scene as the two dispute the price of the wardrobe, producing the effect of the rhythms of the no.]
DEALER: Damn it. Those crazy shouts and that pounding noise have started again in the factory. Sometimes it goes on when I have customers here, and it drives me frantic. One of these days I'll have to buy the property and get rid of that factory. The sound of production - that's what our industrialists call it. Poor fools, as long as they live, they'll never grasp the simple fact that an article only acquires value as it gradually becomes old, obsolete, and useless. They turn out their cheap gadgets as quickly as they can, and after a life haunted by poverty, they die, and that's that.
KIYOKO: I've told you again and again. I'll buy it for three thousand yen.
DEALER: Three million yen.
KIYOKO: NO, no, three thousand yen.
DEALER: TWO million yen.
KIYOKO [stamping her feet to the no rhythm]: No, no, three thousand yen.
DEALER: One million yen.
KIYOKO: No, three thousand yen.
DEALER: Five hundred thousand yen.
KIYOKO: Three thousand yen, three thousand yen, three thousand yen.
DEALER: Four hundred thousand yen.
KIYOKO: When I say three thousand yen, I mean three thousand yen.
DEALER: Three hundred thousand yen.
K I YOKO : Make an effort, one great effort. Come down to my level, all the way down.
You'll feel wonderful once you've made the plunge, all the way down to three thousand yen. Come, it takes only one word from you. Three thousand yen.
138
DEALER: Two hundred thousand yen.
KIYOKO: NO, no, three thousand yen.
DEALER: One hundred thousand yen.
KIYOKO : No, no, three thousand yen.
DEALER: Fifty thousand yen.
KIYOKO: No, three thousand yen, three thousand yen, three thousand yen.
DEALER: Fifty thousand yen. I won't come down another penny.
KIYOKO: Three thousand yen.
DEALER: Fifty thousand yen, fifty thousand yen, fifty thousand yen.
KIYOKO [somewhat weaker]: Three thousand yen.
DEALER: Fifty thousand yen is my rock-bottom price. I won't come down a penny more.
KIYOKO: You're sure?
DEALER : I said fifty thousand yen and I meant fifty thousand yen.
KIYOKO [weakening]: I haven't got that much money.
DEALER: I'm offering it to you at the price it cost me. If you haven't got the money, it's not my fault.
[The noise to left stops completely.]
KIYOKO: Nothing will change your mind?
DEALER : Fifty thousand yen. That's my final offer. Fifty thousand yen.
KIYOKO: I can't afford it. I wanted to buy it and cram it into my tiny apartment, and sit inside thinking of him till I felt my face become hideous - that was my dream. But if I can't have it, that's all right. [She slowly edges backward towards the wardrobe.] Yes, if I can't have it, it's quite all right. It's not really necessary to take this wardrobe all the way back to my apartment in order for my jealousy and my dreams and my pains and my anguish to destroy my face. I can leave it here, without moving it...
DEALER: What are you doing?
KIYOKO : It's all right. The next time you see me, you'll drop dead of fright!
[KIYOKO wheels round and slips into the wardrobe. The doors slam shut with a terrible finality. The DEALER frantically tries to open the doors, but he is unsuccessful.]
DEALER: Damn it. She's locked it from the inside. [He bangs 139
furiously on the door. There is no answer; the inside is absolutely still.] The shameless hussy. She caught me off my guard and now she's finally managed.... She wasn't satisfied with inter-fering with my business and making me lose a fortune. Now, on top of everything else, she's trying the ruin the wardrobe, and it's defective as it is. What have I ever done to deserve this? Damn her. There's no telling what she may be up to inside this wardrobe.
[He puts his ear to the door.] What can she be doing in there ?
This certainly a black day for me.... I can't hear a thing. There's not a sound. It's like putting your ear to a bell. Thick iron walls absolutely silent, though sometimes they can deafen you with reverberations. It doesn't make a sound. ... She couldn't, I'm sure, be disfiguring herself. ... No, that was nothing but a threat, a trick to take advantage of my weakness. [Heputs his ear to the wardrobe again.] Still, what can she be doing ? It gives me the eeriest feeling. Oh - she's switched on the light. Her face is reflected in the mirrors all around her, silent, not saying a word.
Ugh - there's something weird about it. ... No, it was just a threat. [As if he has a premonition] It was only a threat. There's no reason to suppose she would actually go through with such a thing.
[The SUPERINTENDENT of KIYOKO 's apartment building rushes in from right.]
SUPERINTENDENT: Has a dancer named Kiyoko come here? A young, beautiful girl? Kiyoko's her name.
DEALER: Kiyoko? Who are you?
SUPER: I'm the superintendent of the apartment house she lives in.
Are you sure she hasn't been here ? If she comes -
DEALER: Steady, steady. Don't get so excited. If she comes, what then?
SUPER : Her friend tells me she just stole a bottle of sulphuric acid from his shop. He's a pharmacist.
DEALER: Sulphuric acid?
SUPER: He says she dashed out with the bottle in her hand. I've been looking everywhere for her. A man I met on the way said he saw her go into your shop.
DEALER: A-acid, you say?
SUPER: It wasn't so long ago her lover got killed. With a high-140
strung girl like that, there's no telling what she might do. That's what worries me. Just supposing she threw it in somebody's face.
DEALER: YOU think she would? [He recoils and puts his hands to his face in fright.]... No, that's not what she's planning. She's going to throw the acid in her own face.
SUPER: What?
DEALER: Yes, I mean, she'll disfigure herself. What a horrible thing to happen! That beautiful face - she's about to commit a suicide of the face.
SUPER: Why should she do such a thing?
DEALER: Don't you understand what I'm saying ? [Hepoints at the wardrobe.] Kiyoko is in there. She's locked it from the inside.
SUPER:That's terrible. We must get her out of there.
DEALER: The door is solid as a rock.
SUPER: All the same, we've got to do something. [He bangs on the door.] Kiyoko! Kiyoko!
DEALER : A face like that will turn into a witch's! What a black day this has been! [He joins in banging on the door.] Come out!
Don't cause us any trouble. Come out!
SUPER: Kiyoko, Miss Kiyoko.
[A horrible scream is heard from inside the wardrobe. The two men wilt abjectly. A terrible silence. The DEALERS? length brings his hands together in an unconscious attitude of prayer. He wrings out his words.]
DEALER: Come out. I beg you. The wardrobe is useless to me now.
You can have it for three thousand yen. Three thousand yen, that's all. I'm letting you have it. Please come out. [The door finally opens with a heart-rending screeching noise. The DEALER
and the SUPERINTENDENT automatically fall back, KIYOKO
emerges, the vial held in her hand. Her face is not in the least altered.] Your face - nothing's happened!
SUPER: Thank heavens.
DEALER: Thank heavens, my eye. I didn't bargain on that. You're a cheat. Frightening people this way - you might've caused me apoplexy. It's no laughing matter.
KIYOKO [calmly]: I haven't cheated you. I really intended to throw the acid in my face.
141
DEALER: Then what was that scream?
KIYOKO: I switched on the light inside the wardrobe. I saw my face reflected in the mirrors all around me, and the reflections of the reflections of my face in the mirror by the mirror behind it, and these reflections reflected again. Mirrors reflecting mirrors, reflecting my profile, and the mirrors reflected again. An endless, infinite number of my faces, stretching on and on.... It was so cold inside the wardrobe. I was waiting, wondering if among all those faces of mine his might not suddenly appear.
DEALER [ shuddering again]: And did it?
KIYOKO: NO, it didn't. To the ends of the earth, to the ends of the sea, to the ends of the whole world, my face and only my face. I removed the cap from the bottle and I stared at my face in the mirror. I thought, Supposing my face disfigured by this acid were repeated to the ends of the earth? Suddenly I had a vision of my face after I had disfigured it, the horrible face of a witch scarred and festering.
DEALER: And then you screamed?
KIYOKO: Yes.
DEALER: That was when you lost the courage to throw the acid in your face, wasn't it ?
K i YOKO : No. I came back to my senses and screwed the cap on the bottle again, not because I had lost my nerve, but because I realized that even the terrible suffering, jealousy, anger, torment, and pain I had gone through had not been enough to change a human face, that no matter what happened my face was my face.
DEALER: You see, you can't win when you fight with nature.
KIYOKO: I wasn't beaten. I became reconciled to nature.
DEALER: A convenient way of looking at it.
KIYOKO: I have become reconciled. [She drops the bottle on to the floor. The DEALER hastens to kick it aside.] It's sprin
g now, isn't it? I've realized it for the first time. The seasons have meant nothing to me for such a long, long time, ever since he disappeared into this wardrobe. [She sniffs the air around her.] It's the height of spring. Even in this musty old shop I can smell it -
where is it coming from ? - a fragrance of spring earth, of plants and trees, of flowers. The cherry blossoms must be in full glory.
142
Clouds of blossoms, and apart from them only the pines. The strong green of the branches amidst the smoky blossoms, the outlines sharp because they've never had any dreams. The birds are singing. [A twittering of birds is heard.] A singing of birds passing like sunlight through the thickest walls. Even as we stand here the spring relentlessly presses in on us, with such a multitude of cherry blossoms, such a multitude of singing birds.
Every last branch holds as many as it can and shuts its eyes in rapture under the delicious weight. And the wind -1 can smell the fragrance of his living body in this wind. I had forgotten. It was spring!
DEALER : Will you kindly purchase the wardrobe and leave ?
KIYOKO : You were saying a while ago that you'd let me have it for three thousand yen, weren't you?
DEALER: Don't be silly. That was only in case your face was disfigured. The price is still five hundred thousand yen. No, six hundred thousand.
KIYOKO: I don't want it.
DEALER: YOU don't?
KIYOKO: That's right. I really don't want it any more. Sell it to some foolish rich man. Don't worry. I won't make any more trouble for you.
DEALER : Thank heavens for that.
SUPER: Let's go back together to the apartment. You'll have to apologize to your friend in the pharmacy for making him worry.
Then you should get a good night's sleep. You must be exhausted.
KIYOKO [ taking a card from her handbag and examining it]: No, I have an engagement now.
SUPER: Where?
DEALER [ noticing the card KIYOKO holds]: With that gentleman?
Now?
KIYOKO: Yes, with that gentleman, now.
DEALER: If you go, you can be sure he'll give you quite a time.
KI YO KO : I'm not worried. Nothing can bother me, no matter what happens. Who do you suppose can wound me now?