Reading Notes W12: The Tattooer, Part X

Jun'ichiro: The Tattooer (78-84)

  • it was an age when men honored the noble virtue of frivolity, and when life was not suhc a harsh struggle
  • people did all they could to beautify themselves, some even having pigments injected into theit skin
  • courtesans of the Yoshiwara and the Tatsumi quarter fell in love with tattooed men (80)
  • exhibitions were held where the participants would strip to show off their tattooed bodies and boast if their own designs and criticize each other
  • there was a young tattooer named Seikichi and he was praised on all sides as a master the equal of  Charibun or Yatsuhei, and the skins of dozens of men had been offered as the silk for his brush
  • the clients he did accept had to leave the design and cost entirely to his discretion
  • his pleasure laid in the agony men felt as he drove his needles into them, torturing their swollen, blood-red flesh (80)
  • whenever a man complained or even made a gesture or face, Seikichi would say, "Don't act like a child. Pull yourself together - you have hardly begun to feel my needles" (81)
  • when a man did not frown and forbid to make a painful gesture, Seikichi would smile and say: "Ah, you are a stubborn one! But wait. Soon your body will begin to throb with pain. I doubt if you will be able to stand it. . . . " (81)
  • for a long time Seikishi had cherished the desire to create a masterpiece on the skin of a beautiful woman
  • these women who had a lovely face and a fine body were not enough for him
  • one summer evening during the 4th year of his search, he found the perfect woman
  • she had exquisitely chiseled toes, nails like the iridescent shells along the shore at Enoshima, a waters of a mountain spring (81)
  • he tried to follow her to see her face but lost sight of her
  • her beauty mirrored the dreams of the generations of the glamorous men and women who had lived and died in this vast captial
  • he studied her feet and looked at her face and realized this was the woman he was looking for
  • he tattoos her
  • she wants to see the tattoo but he tells her she must bathe to bring out the colors (84) 

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