The House of the Sleeping Beauties Read Online Free PDF Page A

stronger. The impatience if the wait from nine to eleven had brought in a certain intoxication.
    The same woman unlocked the gate for him. The same reproduction was in the alcove. The tea was again good. He was more nervous than on his earlier visit, but he managed to behave like an old and experienced customer.
    "It's so warm hereabouts… " he said, looking around at the picture of the mountain village in autumn leaves "… that I imagine the maple leaves wither without really turning red. But then it was dark, and I didn't really get a good look at your garden."
    It was an improbable way to make conversation.
    "I wonder… " said the woman, indifferently "… it's gotten very cold. I've put on an electric blanket, a double one with two switches. You can adjust your side to suit yourself."
    "I've never slept under an electric blanket."
    "You can turn your side off if you like, but I must ask that you leave the girl's on."
    Because she was naked, the old man knew.
    "An interesting idea, a blanket that two people can adjust to suit themselves."
    "It's American. But please don't be difficult and turn off the girl's side. You understand, I'm sure, that she won't wake up, no matter how cold she gets."
    He did not answer.
    "She's more experienced than the one before."
    "What?"
    "She's very pretty too. You won't do anything wrong, I know… and so it wouldn't be right if she weren't pretty."
    "It's not the same one?"
    "No. This evening… isn't it better to have a different one?"
    "I'm not as promiscuous as all that."
    "Promiscuous? But what does it have to do with promiscuousness?"
    The woman's easy way of speaking seemed to hide a faint smile of derision.
    "None of my guest are promiscuous. They are all kind enough to be gentlemen I can trust."
    Thin-lipped, the woman did not looked at him as she spoke. The note of mockery set Eguchi on edge, but he could think of nothing to say. What was she, after all, but a cold, seasoned procuress?
    "And then you may think of it as promiscuous, but the girl herself is asleep, and doesn't even know who she has slept with. The girl the other time and the girl tonight will never know a thing about you, and to speak of promiscuous is a little…"
    "I see. It's not a human relationship."
    "What do you mean:"
    It would be odd to explain, now that he had come to the house, that for an old man who was no longer a man, to keep company with a girl who had been put to sleep was 'not a human relationship'."
    "And what's wrong with being promiscuous?"
    Her voice strangely young, the woman laughed a laugh to soothe an old man.
    "If you're fond of the other girl, I can have her here the next time you come. But you'll admit afterwards that this one is better."
    "Oh? What do you mean when you say she's more experienced? After all she's sound asleep;"
    "Yes?" The woman got up, unlock the door to the next room, looked inside, and put the key before old Eguchi. "I hope you sleep well."
    Eguchi poured hot water into the pot and had a leisurely cup of tea. He meant it to be leisurely, at least, but his hand was shaking. It was not because of his age, he muttered. He was not yet a guest to be trusted. How would it be, by way of revenge for all the derided and insulted old men who came here, if he where to violate the rule of the house? And would that not be a more human way of keeping company with the girl? He did not know how heavily she had been drugged, but he was probably still capable of awakening her with his roughness. So he thought. But his heart did not rise to the challenge.
    The ugly senility of the sad men who came to this house was not many years away for Eguchi himself. The immeasurable expanse of sex, its bottomless depth… what part of it had Eguchi known in his sixty-seven years? And around the old men, new flesh, young flesh, beautiful flesh was forever being born. Were not the longing of the sad old men for the unfinished dream, the secret of this house? Eguchi had thought before that girls who