It was a time when people still had the noble virtue of “stupidity

It was a time when people still had the noble virtue of “stupidity” and the world was not as violent and frictionless as it is today. It was a time when the world was so relaxed that there were still professions such as tea masters and boken (aiding and abetting), who sold their eloquence to keep the lounging faces of lords and young masters and the laughter of courtesans and oiran (courtesans) from being exhausted. In those days, the beautiful were the strong and the ugly were the weak, whether in plays or in kusa-soshi. Everyone tried to be beautiful, even to the point of pouring paint on their own bodies. The vivid or gorgeous lines and colors danced on the skin of the people of those days. Customers passing through the horse paths would choose a palanquin carrying a palanquin with a splendid tattoo. Women in Yoshiwara and Tatsumi also fell in love with men with beautiful tattoos. Not only the merchants and steeplejacks, but also the townspeople and, on rare occasions, even the samurai, were tattooed. At the tattoo parties held in Ryogoku from time to time, the attendees would slap each other’s skin and comment on each other’s eccentric designs. A young tattoo artist named Seikichi was very skillful. He was praised as a master as good as Chari-bun of Asakusa, Nuhei and Konkonjiro of Matsushima-cho, and dozens of people’s skin was heddolite under his paintbrush. Many of the popular tattoos at tattoo parlors were created by him. Daruma Kin is said to have excelled at blurred stitches, Karakusa Gonta was praised as a master of vermillion stitches, and Seikichi was also known for his bizarre compositions and bewitching lines. Seikichi was also known for his alarming compositions and bewitching lines. He had been a ukiyoe artist who admired the style of Toyokuni Kunisada, and even after falling into a tattoo artist, Seikichi still had the conscience and keen sense of artisanship typical of a craftsman. He was not going to buy his tattoos unless he had the skin and frame that would attract his heart. Even if he could get someone to do it, he would have to do whatever he wanted in terms of composition and cost, and endure the excruciating pain of needlepoint for a month or two. In this young tattooist’s mind, there was a hidden pleasure and longing that he did not know. When he pierced people’s skin with his needles, most of the men could not bear the tingle of crimson blood in their flesh, and they moaned in pain. He was especially pleased to be able to use vermillion stabbing, which is said to be one of the most painful types of tattooing. He was especially pleased to be able to use them. On average, he received five or six hundred needles a day, and all the people who came out of the bath to improve their color would lie at Seikichi’s feet, half-dead, unable to move for a while. Seikichi always looked at them coldly and said, “I am sure you are in pain. I am sure you must be in pain. He would smile pleasantly while saying, “I’m sure he’s in pain. Whenever a willful man or someone like that would contort his mouth, grit his teeth, and scream as if he were in the throes of death, he would say to him, “You are an Edo boy, too. He would say, “You are an Edo child, too. Be patient. —This Seikichi’s needle is the most painful of all. He looked at the tear-stained face of the man with a sideways glance and stabbed him without care. The patient man held his nerve and endured it without frowning even an eyebrow. He said, “Well, you’re not what you look like, you’re a stubborn one. —But you see, you will start to ache and become irresistible. He smiled, showing his white teeth. His long-cherished wish had been to obtain the skin of a beautiful and luminous woman and to put his soul into her. He had many requests regarding the quality and appearance of the woman. He was not satisfied with merely a beautiful face and skin. Even though he looked up women who had made a name for themselves in the colorful streets of Edo, he could not easily find the taste and tone that suited his mood. He spent three or four years longing in vain for the image of someone he had not yet seen in his mind, but he did not give up on his wish.

One evening in the summer of his fourth year, while passing by the restaurant Heiheiyo in Fukagawa, he suddenly noticed a woman’s bare white feet spilling out from behind the blind of a palanquin waiting at the gate.To his keen eye, a human foot looked as complex as its face

Why are you showing me this horrible thing? Why are you showing me such a terrible thing? The woman in the picture is you.You must have her blood on your body,” he said

The spring night was dawning with the sound of riverboats going up and down, and the roofs of houses in Nakasu, Hakozaki, and Reiganjima glittered in the haze that began to fade from the tops of the white sails that were coming down with the morning breeze.The tattoo was his whole life

The woman’s foot was a precious jewel of flesh to him. The delicate arrangement of the five delicate toes starting from the thumb and ending at the little toe, the color of her fingernails as fine as the velvet shells caught on the shores of the picturesque islands, the roundness of her heels like pearls, the moistness of her skin that made one wonder if the water between the rocks was constantly washing under her feet. These were the feet that would soon grow fat on the man’s blood and cling to his molars. It seemed that the woman with these feet was the woman among women that he had been searching for so long. Seikichi clutched his chest and chased after the palanquin, eager to see the face of the woman, but after a couple of streets, he could no longer see her shadow. It was late in the year when Seikichi’s longing turned into intense love, and one morning in the spring of his fifth year, he was halfway through his old age. He was sitting in his foyer in Fukagawa Sagacho with a toothpick in his mouth, looking at a bowl of mannen blue on the rusty bamboo porch, when he heard a call at the back wooden door of the garden and saw an unfamiliar young woman come in from behind a sleeve fence. It was a messenger sent by a geiko from Tatsumi, a place Seikichi was familiar with. She said, “Miss, please hand this haori to your master and ask him to draw a pattern on the lining. ……… She unwrapped the gold furoshiki and took out a women’s haori wrapped in a tatami mat with a portrait of Iwai Duwaka and a letter. In the letter, after asking for the haori, he wrote that the messenger’s daughter would soon be joining my family as my younger sister, and that he would not forget about me and would be pleased if he could help her. I thought you didn’t look familiar, but then I wondered if you had come here recently. Seikichi looked at the girl sullenly. She looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old, but her face was incredibly fair, as if she had lived in a village of many colors for a long time and had played with the souls of dozens of men. It was a quality that should have come from the dreams of many beautiful men and women who had lived and died over the decades in the city where sins and wealth flowed from all over the country. He was a man of capacity that should have been born from the dreams of many beautiful men and women who had lived and died over the decades. Seikichi let his daughter hang over the edge of the room and looked closely at her exquisite feet on the table of the Bingo table. He then asked her, “Well, at that time, when your father was still alive, I often went to Taira-no-Kiyoshi. The daughter answered the strange question with a laugh. I have been waiting for you for five years now. I have not seen your face before, but I know your feet. —I have something to show you, so why don’t you go up and play slowly? Seikichi took the girl’s hand and led her upstairs to the second floor room facing the water of the Okawa River. It was a painting of Suehki, the favorite consort of the ancient tyrant Shojo. She was leaning against the rail, her body limp under the weight of her golden crown studded with lapis lazuli coral, the hem of her robe fluttering in the middle of the floor, a large cup leaning in her right hand, looking at the victim who was about to be executed in front of her in the garden. The woman’s face, with her eyes closed, nodding her head in front of the queen as she awaited her final fate, was depicted with amazing skill. The daughter gazed at this strange picture for a while, and without knowing it, her eyes were shining and her lips were quivering. Strangely enough, her face gradually began to resemble the queen’s face. The daughter found her true “self” hidden there. This picture reflects your heart,” Seikichi said. Seikichi looked into her face, smiling pleasantly. He went on to show another painting, entitled “Fertilizer. It was titled “Fertilizer. In the center of the painting, a young woman leans against a cherry tree trunk and stares at the corpses of men lying dead in a heap beneath her feet. A flock of birds sings a triumphant song as they dance around her, and her eyes are filled with an uncontrollable pride and joy. Is this a scene from the ruins of war or a spring scene in a flower garden? The girl who was shown it felt as if she had discovered something that had been lurking in the depths of our hearts. This is a picture of your future. All those who have died here will die for you from now on. Seikichi then pointed to a woman whose face was not so different from his daughter’s. “It’s for your own good, so hurry up and get that picture. She said, “For your own sake, please put that picture away. The girl turned her head to the tatami mat to avoid temptation, but then her lips pursed again. I confess, my master. As you can see, I am of the same nature as the woman in the picture. —So please put up with me and pull it off. You should look at this picture more carefully without saying such a cowardly thing. You should look at this picture more carefully without being so cowardly, and you should be afraid of it now. Seikichi’s face was filled with his usual nasty smile. But the girl’s head did not rise easily. She covered her face with the sleeve of her lintel and kept her head down. She was still lying on her face, covered by the sleeve of the lintel, and she said, “Master, please let me go. I am afraid to stay with you. He repeated several times. He repeated several times, “Well, wait a minute. I will make you into a woman of fine capacity. Seikichi casually approached the girl’s side. In his pocket was a bottle of sleeping pills given to him by a Dutch doctor. The sun was shining brightly on the surface of the river and the eight-tatami mat room was burning. The rays reflecting off the surface of the water made golden ripples on the face of the sleeping girl and on the paper of the shoji screens. Seikichi, who had closed the door to his room and picked up the tattoo tools, sat there for a while in ecstasy. For the first time, he was able to taste the woman’s strange face. Facing her motionless face, he thought that even if he sat in this room for ten years or a hundred years, he would never get tired of it. Just as the people of Memphis of old decorated the majestic dusty heavens and earth with pyramids and sphinxes, Seikichi wanted to decorate the pure skin of man with his own love. He placed the tip of the paintbrush between the little finger, the anonymous finger, and the thumb of his left hand on the girl’s back, and then inserted the needle into the skin with his right hand. The spirit of the young tattooist dissolved in the ink and bled into the skin. Each drop of Ryukyu red ink mixed with shochu was a reminder of his life. He saw the color of his soul. The afternoon passed, and the peaceful spring day was almost over, but Seikichi’s hands did not rest and the woman’s sleep was unbroken. He was worried about his daughter’s late return, so he went to the Hakoya to pick her up. He was turned away by the man who said, “The girl has already gone home. He was turned away. By the time the moon was over the Dochu mansion on the other side of the river and the dreamy light was streaming into the living rooms of houses all along the coast, the tattoo was not even half finished and Seikichi was still working on the candle with all his heart. It was no easy task for him to pour in a single point of color. With each stroke, he would breathe a deep sigh and feel as if his heart were being stabbed. The needle marks gradually began to take the shape of a giant female spider, and by the time the night began to grow light again, this mysterious magical animal was coiled all over his back with its eight limbs outstretched. His heart was empty after he had finished his work. The two figures remained motionless for a moment. Then a low, muffled voice could be heard on the four walls of the room. I put my soul into your tattoo to make you a truly beautiful woman, and from now on there will be no woman in Japan who can match you. You no longer have the timid heart that you used to have. All men will become your fertilizer. ………”. A faint, thread-like moan escaped the woman’s lips, as if her words had been understood. The girl’s senses were gradually recovering. The spider’s limbs peristalized as if alive as it breathed heavily in and heavily out. It must be painful. The spider is hugging your body. The girl’s narrow, meaningless eyes opened as she was told this. Her eyes shone brightly in the man’s face, as if the light of the evening moon were increasing. The girl’s words were like a dream. The girl’s words were dreamlike, but her tone had a sharp edge to it. Well, we are going to the bathhouse now to do the coloring up. I know it will be painful, but you will have to endure it. Seikichi put his mouth close to her ear and whispered to her in an apologetic tone, “If you can even become beautiful, how much more beautiful can you become? If you can even become beautiful, I will show you how much I will endure,” she said. The daughter smiled, trying to hold back the pain in her own body. Ah, the pain of the hot water,” she said. COPY00 master, for my sake, please leave me and go upstairs and wait for me, for I would hate for a man to see me in such a miserable state. The daughter, unable to wipe her body after taking a bath, shoved away Seikichi’s caring hands and threw herself into the sink board in such intense pain that she moaned as if she were having a nightmare. Her hair, which looked like a madman’s, was disheveled on her cheeks in a distressing manner. Behind her stood a mirror stand. Two white soles of her feet were reflected on the surface. Seikichi was startled to see the woman’s demeanor change from yesterday, but he did as he was told and waited upstairs by himself. She looked up at the sky, leaning on the parapet, with her brow furrowed in pain. I’ll give you this picture along with the tattoo, and you can take it with you when you leave. With these words, Seikichi placed the scroll in front of the woman. I’ve already put away my cowardice,” he said. —You were the first to become my fertilizer. The woman’s eyes shone like swords. A triumphant voice was singing in her ears. Before you leave, let me see your tattoo one more time,” Seikichi said. Seikichi said. The woman nodded silently and took off her skin.